Lot Essay
In the late 1940s as Kline moved from small representational work to abstraction, his paintings became much larger in format, his forms simpler, and he began to paint out color with large areas of black and white. In several of these early black and white masterpieces, such as the 1950-1951 Abstraction, he allowed vestiges of color to remain, enlivening the otherwise densely layered surface. As David Anfam notes, "Kline was a great admirer of Still's work. As late as Abstraction from around 1950-51, the heavily textured whites relate to Still's idiosyncratic manipulation of pigment with the palette knife. Still could make his charred, viscous surfaces look as if they concealed color beneath . . . Likewise, the blacks and whites in Abstraction cover gold and yellow. The emphatic negation of hue was critical in order to convert monochrome into more than just color's absence. Kline explained to David Sylvester:
'It wasn't a question of deciding to do a black-and-white painting. I think there was a time when the original forms that finally came out in black and white were in color, say, and then as time went on I painted them out and made them black and white. And then when they got that way, I just liked them, you know.' (D. Anfam, Franz Kline, Black & White, 1950-1961, Houston 1994, p. 22)
Abstraction, 1950-1951, marks the beginning of the bold, daring black and white paintings for which Kline is best known. Kline did not conscientiously decide to eliminate other colors, but he felt that only with black and white would he be able to create the simple, formidable images he wanted. '"People sometimes think I take a white 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"' (Interview with Katherine Kuh, The Artist's Voice, New York 1962, reprinted in Harry Gaugh, Franz Kline: The Color Abstractions, New York 1979, p. 11).
In looking at Abstraction, the black and white forms are of equal value. What makes this painting special are the touches of color. Later in 1956, when Kline reintroduced color into his paintings, it became a dominant consideration. The later paintings, more dense and colorful, lack the subtle impact of his earlier canvases where color was subordinate to the large black and white masses.
'It wasn't a question of deciding to do a black-and-white painting. I think there was a time when the original forms that finally came out in black and white were in color, say, and then as time went on I painted them out and made them black and white. And then when they got that way, I just liked them, you know.' (D. Anfam, Franz Kline, Black & White, 1950-1961, Houston 1994, p. 22)
Abstraction, 1950-1951, marks the beginning of the bold, daring black and white paintings for which Kline is best known. Kline did not conscientiously decide to eliminate other colors, but he felt that only with black and white would he be able to create the simple, formidable images he wanted. '"People sometimes think I take a white 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"' (Interview with Katherine Kuh, The Artist's Voice, New York 1962, reprinted in Harry Gaugh, Franz Kline: The Color Abstractions, New York 1979, p. 11).
In looking at Abstraction, the black and white forms are of equal value. What makes this painting special are the touches of color. Later in 1956, when Kline reintroduced color into his paintings, it became a dominant consideration. The later paintings, more dense and colorful, lack the subtle impact of his earlier canvases where color was subordinate to the large black and white masses.