Kenneth Noland

Kenneth Noland ranks among the most recognized artists of American Abstract Expressionism painting. Well known for his colored concentric circles, chevrons and stripes, he is considered as "one of the great colorists of the 20th century" by Karen Wilkin, the author of a monograph on Noland, and as one of the major figures in American Art, by Clement Greenberg.* Kenneth Noland was born in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1924 and studied at Black Mountain College, North Carolina from 1946 to 1948 with Josef Albers and Ilya Bolotowsky. He had his first solo exhibition at Galerie Raymond Creuze in Paris after moving there in 1948 to study for a year with sculptor Ossip Zadkine. He taught at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Washington, D.C. (1949-51), at the Catholic University, Washington, D.C.(1951-60), and at the Washington Workshop Center of the Arts (1952-56). In 2010, Noland died in Port Clyde, Maine. His work was part of the Venice Biennale (1964) and his first retrospective was held at the Guggenheim Museum (1977), which traveled to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio (1978). Noland has been the subject of solo exhibitions at a range of international institutions, including the Museo de arte moderno, Mexico City (1983); Museo de bella artes, Bilbao, Spain (1985); Museum of Fine Art, Houston (2004); Tate, Liverpool (2006); and Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio (1986 and 2007). * See William Grimes, New York Times, January 6, 2010.