Al Held

Artist Bio

American painter. His early work was in the prevailing Abstract Expressionist idiom, being particularly influenced by Jackson Pollock. From about 1960, however, he began to develop a more individual style characterized by clean-edged, bold, brightly coloured geometrical forms. It had affinities with Hard-Edge Painting, but Held’s work was distinguished by his use of very heavily textured paint. He often worked on a huge scale, giving his paintings an extremely forceful physical impact. In 1967 he began making black-and-white paintings, using white linear structures on a black ground or black lines on a white ground to create overlapping and interlocking box-like forms that reveal his interest in Renaissance perspective. In the 1980s he reintroduced colour with a vengeance, as in his 17 m (55 ft) long mural Mantegna’s Edge (1983, Southland Center, Dallas), a work of tremendous high-keyed vigour. (bio)

Al Held at Paul Kasmin Gallery

Al Held on Artnet