Monday Night Mark

Expand

IIIFView PDF

Monday Night Mark

Artist Jules Olitski (American, 1922-2007)

Date1965

Dimensions69 × 63 in. (175.3 × 160 cm)

MediumAcrylic on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott

Object number

2017.8

Not on View

Label Text“What I would like in my painting is simply a spray of color that hangs like a cloud….” Abstract painter Jules Olitski utilized industrial spray guns to create “spray paintings” beginning in the mid-1960s—a technique he created himself. With a spray gun for each color, Olitski built up successive layers of acrylic paint on the canvas, gradually transitioning from color to color and from light to dark. This technique allowed Olitski to produce the effect of color floating in the air. He described the first time he experimented with a spray gun: “A mist of color had spread itself on part of the canvas. It was ravishing… . If one gun was great, two guns, two colors—ecstasy! A world of possibilities had opened.” A prime example of Olitski's spray paintings, Monday Night Mark seems to show light emerging from a dark background and explores different densities and textures of layered color. How many colors do you see?Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, Everything is Rhythm: Mid-Century Art & Music, April 6, 2019-February 23, 2020.