Al Held is an artist who defies neat categorizations. Part of the second wave of Abstract Expressionist artists in New York, Held’s different styles of painting throughout his career have been alternatively referred to as “Abstract Expressionist-inspired,” “hard edge abstraction,” “concrete abstraction,” “Color Field,” “constructivism,” and even “Piranesian Pop.” Perhaps these appellations are all appropriate designations at one time or another because this unique artist never had “just one good idea.” Or perhaps the range of his body of work more accurately reflects the passage of American Art from the iconic 1950’s action paintings through to the more crisp geometric abstraction following.
Al Held is an artist who defies neat categorizations. Part of the second wave of Abstract Expressionist artists in New York, Held produced different styles of painting throughout his career that have been alternatively referred to as “Abstract Expressionist-inspired”, “hard edge abstraction”, “concrete abstraction”, “Color Field”, “constructivism”, and even “Piranesian Pop”. Perhaps these appellations are all appropriate designations at one time or another because this unique artist never had “just one good idea”. Or perhaps the range of his body of work more accurately reflects the passage of American Art from the iconic 1950’s action paintings through to the more crisp geometric abstraction following.
Whatever the reason, C Series #13, 1967 as with our other work by Held entitled Untitled, 1967 ushered in a period when Held’s pictures were exclusively black and white. These works approach total abstraction, but stop just short. Visual, graphically monumental, their arrangements are architecturally inspired, extending beyond the picture plane, and thus creating an awareness of space beyond the edge of the canvas. Such works project a solid iconic air. A not too subtle typographical ploy approaches the realm of Pop Art but in the final analysis both works are more constructivist in approach and with intent as Held explained in an interview with Paul Cummings in 1975:
There has been a constant theme there of wanting to advance that space…I would spend lots and lots of time on one edge…but the only way one could do that would be to invent a subject that wasn’t simply an abstract theme.
Held wanted his pictures to point outwards and to be a threshold to the outside world. Untitled, 1967 and C Series #13 which also dates from 1967 foreshadowed the more complicated perspectives which Held began to explore more fully in the 1960’s.
Private Collection, Zurich
By descent from the above to Private Collector, New York
Private collection Greenwich, CT