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Lot Essay
The present work exemplifies Kline's signature black-and-white paintings, which he created almost exclusively during the last twelve years of his career. This restricted palette enabled Kline to concentrate on the structure of his compositions as well as to capture the gestural velocity of his pigment: formal concerns and spatial movement.
Kline's strokes are aggressive, open, and monumental, seeking to define space and motion. He often painted with wide housepainter's brushes on large-scale canvases tacked to the wall. The solid support enabled him to sweep vigorously across the canvas, depositing dense areas of pigment that convey the tactile presence of provocatively painted surfaces.
As the artist has commented, "People sometimes think I take canvas and paint a black sign on it, but this is not true. I paint the white as well as the black, and the white is just as important" (Quoted in I. Sandler, The Triumph of American Painting, New York, 1970, p. 245).
Black Sienna is characteristic of those created at the peak of Kline's career. The gestural strokes, now abrupt, tense, and rough, are fused into two spheres of energy, one suspended about the other. The result is hieratic and arresting in its monumentality, but it is far from static. Many of Kline's compositions during this period show a dominance of vertical and horizontal stokes and have often been described as architectonic elements or calligraphic signs. While parallel and perpendicular lines seem to arrive at a spirited balance, the forms in the present canvas convey an even greater sense of dynamism and spontaneity, which is intensified through both their diagonal orientation and the prominent, near-vertical drips.
(fig. 1) Kline in his studio, circa 1956. Photograph by Oliver Baker, New York.
Kline's strokes are aggressive, open, and monumental, seeking to define space and motion. He often painted with wide housepainter's brushes on large-scale canvases tacked to the wall. The solid support enabled him to sweep vigorously across the canvas, depositing dense areas of pigment that convey the tactile presence of provocatively painted surfaces.
As the artist has commented, "People sometimes think I take canvas and paint a black sign on it, but this is not true. I paint the white as well as the black, and the white is just as important" (Quoted in I. Sandler, The Triumph of American Painting, New York, 1970, p. 245).
Black Sienna is characteristic of those created at the peak of Kline's career. The gestural strokes, now abrupt, tense, and rough, are fused into two spheres of energy, one suspended about the other. The result is hieratic and arresting in its monumentality, but it is far from static. Many of Kline's compositions during this period show a dominance of vertical and horizontal stokes and have often been described as architectonic elements or calligraphic signs. While parallel and perpendicular lines seem to arrive at a spirited balance, the forms in the present canvas convey an even greater sense of dynamism and spontaneity, which is intensified through both their diagonal orientation and the prominent, near-vertical drips.
(fig. 1) Kline in his studio, circa 1956. Photograph by Oliver Baker, New York.