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Robert Goodnough, 1917-2010
"Untitled Abstract" Abstract Expressionist, Color Field, Black & White, Colors

1960s

About the Item

"Untitled Abstract" is by the American painter, Robert Goodnough, known for calligraphy-like markings circa 1960s. Though he was associated with the Abstract Expressionists, Goodnough’s work varied in style and often eluded categorization. “I like to work freely, to slash with the brush and let loose. I also like to work carefully and with discipline,” he once explained. In later years his paintings were associated with the Color Field Movement. This painting is in Goodnough's style from the 1960s, with signature on verso along with the provenance from the Getrude Kasle Collection, a collection from a Southfield, Michigan estate that went to auction. This piece was originally purchased from the Gertrude Kasle Gallery during an opening in 1965. Gertrude Kasle had opened the Gertrude Kasle Gallery in Detroit in 1965. During its eleven years of operation it introduced many in the region to the works of many of the up and coming modern and abstract expressionist artists from New York City and other locations, such as Larry Rivers, Grace Hartigan, Robert Goodnough, and Robert Natkin. The opening exhibition featured Larry Rivers, Grace Hartigan, Robert Goodnough, Irving Kreisberg, and Manoucher Yektai. Born on 1917 in Cortland, New York, Goodnough graduated from Syracuse University and painted in a representational style early on in his career. After serving in the military during World War II, he attended the painting classes of both Amedee Ozenfant and Hans Hofmann. The artist went on to receive his MA from New York University, and soon after fell into a milieu of artists and writers that included William de Kooning and Helen Frankenthaler. He went on to become a contributing writer for Art News and exhibited his work both in the United States and abroad. Goodnough died in 2010 in New York at the age of 92. Goodnough was a veteran of scores of solo exhibitions and hundreds of group exhibitions in the United States and abroad. In 1969 he had a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo. A major work by Goodnough is included in The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection in Albaby, N.Y. His works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art among others.
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