Al Held Art
American, 1928-2005
Alvin Jacob Held, (1928-2005) Al Held earned his slot in the annals of American contemporary art with his bold, geometric canvases that took abstraction to another level. His free-floating, interlocked cubes, and planes invited the viewer into a vertigo-inducing landscape that seemed to stretch on into infinity. "Immense architectural structures curve and slice through these complex paintings, often enmeshing themselves in cellular structures," noted the Times of London. "Viewers felt that they were exploring some mysterious universe, and Held never lost his passionate belief in abstract painting's ability to create a sublime new world."
Held grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and as a teenager, missed so many days of high school that it was suggested he consider leaving altogether. He eventually earned a night-school diploma, and spent two years in the U.S. Navy. Back in New York City, he enrolled in classes at the Art Students League, and went on to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris in the early 1950s. The first solo exhibition of his work was staged there, in 1952 at the Galerie Huit. Held's abstract work took on a more orderly, formal tone, aided by a switch from oil to acrylic paints in 1959, and he had his first solo show in New York City that same year at the Poindexter Gallery. "Finessing the gap between Minimalism and Color Field painting," wrote New York Times journalist Ken Johnson of the next decade of Held's career, "he produced smooth, simplified works based on enlarged letters of the alphabet. And in the late '60s and '70s he made complex black-and-white pictures of sharply outlined cubes, pyramids, and other geometric shapes floating in illusory spaces of indeterminate depth."
Some of Held's best-known works are those floating black and white cubes, a series he began in 1967. One of the largest, which stretches more than 90 feet in length, was installed at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, New York. In the late 1970s, in an abrupt shift, he began using color again, and the geometric shapes became so precise that they were sometimes mistaken for computer-generated art. Held considered his images not unlike those of religious art, once telling an interviewer that "historically, the priests and wise men believed that it was the artist's job to make images of heaven and hell believable, even though nobody had experienced these places," he said, according to his Chicago Tribune obituary.
Held spent 20 years teaching at Yale University's. Represented by the Robert Miller Gallery in New York City, which staged what would be his last exhibition of new work in 2003, Held's works were avidly sought by contemporary-art enthusiasts around the world, and were part of the permanent collections of many institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.
— Carol Brennan(Biography provided by Judy Ferrara Gallery)
Color: Black
Artist: Al Held
Untitled "A"
By Al Held
Located in London, GB
Price: $75,000 (+5% import VAT)
Provenance:
Robert Miller Gallery, New York
Private collection, New York (acquired from the above in 1980)
Exhibited:
Montpellier, Musee Fabre, "...
Category
1960s Abstract Expressionist Al Held Art
Materials
Acrylic
Untitled
By Al Held
Located in New York, NY
AL HELD
Untitled, 1950 - 1952
Oil on canvas
20 x 24 inches
Signed verso
Category
1950s Abstract Expressionist Al Held Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
60 S-2 AP
By Al Held
Located in New York, NY
AL HELD
60 S-2 AP, 1964-1965
Ink and acrylic on paper mounted on board
15 x 39-7/8 inches
Category
1960s Abstract Al Held Art
Materials
Ink, Acrylic, Archival Paper
PI 49
By Al Held
Located in New York, NY
Signed and dated verso
Category
1960s Al Held Art
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Theodore Franklin (“Ted”) Appleby, Jr. was born January 28, 1923 in Asbury Park, New Jersey to a very prominent family in Monmouth County. He attended the Pauling School in New York and studied at the atelier of John Corneal.
On December 12, 1942, Appleby enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, subsequently seeing action in the Marshall Islands. Upon the conclusion of the war, he was stationed for a year in Yokohama, Japan, where he studied local engraving techniques.
In 1947, after returning home, Appleby moved to Mexico for a year to study mural painting in San Miguel de Allende. Following his sojourn in Mexico, Appleby briefly returned home to the U.S. before ultimately relocating to Paris. There, he joined a lively community of expatriate American artists involved with what would come to be known as the “School of Paris.” Appleby befriended fellow Americans Sam Francis and Jackson Pollock, exhibiting extensively throughout France with the former. He also regularly visited the atelier of Fernand Léger, and was represented in the "Salon de Réalités Nouvelles" and the “Salon d’Automne” during the 1950s and 60s.
From 1955 to 1961, Appleby participated in group exhibitions in Chicago, Leverkusen (Germany), Lisbon, London, and Paris. He also had three notable solo exhibitions during this period: Studio Facchetti, Paris (1956); Martha Jackson Gallery, New York (1957); and the American Cultural Center, Paris (1959). In 1957, Appleby’s work was presented at the 62nd American Exposition of Painters and Sculptors at the Chicago Art Institute, where he was awarded the Norman Wait Harris Bronze Medal and Prize.
Answering the famed artist André Lhote’s call to help save the village of Alba-la-Romaine in the Ardèche, Appleby and his wife - the artist Hope Manchester - purchased a home in the village in 1950, ultimately settling there until their deaths.
Source: Taylor Graham Gallery
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Previously Available Items
Liv
By Al Held
Located in New York, NY
1992, color hardground etching with aquatint, 40 1/2 x 54 inches (102.9 x 137.2 cm), edition of 30, signed, numbered, and dated on reverse
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Al Held art for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Al Held art available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of art to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of orange, blue, red and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Al Held in paint, screen print, acrylic paint and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the abstract style. Not every interior allows for large Al Held art, so small editions measuring 22 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Theodoros Stamos, Peter Voulkos, and Friedel Dzubas. Al Held art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $2,000 and tops out at $100,000, while the average work can sell for $5,565.