Acrylic on canvas, 1954, signed and inscribed to verso, unframed.

Stretcher size 8 1/4 x 9 1/8 in.

From a Private Collection, Eastern North Carolina

Freeman's, Modern + Contemporary Art, May 17, 2009, Lot 89

Kenneth Noland grew up in Asheville, North Carolina and enrolled at Black Mountain College in 1946. Here he studied with Josef Albers and Ilya Bolotowsky who were instrumental in his development as an artist.

Noland would gain fame as a Color Field painter. Alongside Morris Louis, his friend and fellow artist, he helped establish the Washington Color School Movement in the the late 1950s. In 1960, the revered art critic, Clement Greenberg, proclaimed Noland and Louis the rightful successors to Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.

In 1977, Noland was honored with a major retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. His paintings are in the collections of Tate Britain, London; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and others.

With conservation report from Ruth Cox (5/11/2018).