Kenneth Noland

Gift

1961–2

© The estate of Kenneth Noland /VAGA, New York/DACS, London 2023

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Not on display

Artist
Kenneth Noland 1924–2010
Medium
Acrylic paint on canvas
Dimensions
Support: 1829 × 1829 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Presented by the artist through the American Federation of Arts 1966
Reference
T00898

Display caption

Like Morris Louis, Noland has worked in series, executing several works which explore a single motif. 'Gift' is one of several paintings, made in the late 1950s and early 1960s, which use a simple target form as their basic idea. Unlike Jasper Johns's target paintings, made around the same time, Noland does not intend the image to be read as a target. Instead, this is a purely formal device, providing Noland with a ready made structure for his painting. The concentric rings also concentrate the effect of the colour. In these ways, Noland's use of flattened forms and colour deliberately avoids any sense of narrative or personal expression.

Gallery label, September 2004

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Catalogue entry

Kenneth Noland born 1924

T00898 Gift 1961-2

Inscribed on the stretcher '"GIFT" 1962', 'Top' with an arrow, and 'KENNETH NOLAND'; and on the back of the canvas "'Clement's Gift" | 1962 | Kenneth Noland'
Acrylic on canvas, 72 x 72 (183 x 183)
Presented by the artist through the American Federation of Arts 1966
Prov: Clement Greenberg, New York (gift from the artist); the artist
Exh: XXXII Biennale, Venice, June-October 1964 (USA 17, repr.), lent by Clement Greenberg; Kenneth Noland, Jewish Museum, New York, February-March 1965 (19, repr.)
Repr: Ronald Alley, Recent American Art (London 1969), pl.16; The Tate Gallery (London 1969), p.188; Terry Measham, The Moderns 1945-1975 (Oxford 1976), pl.55 in colour

The artist originally gave this painting to his friend Clement Greenberg, the art critic, and later obtained it back in exchange for another work so that it could be presented to the Tate.

According to the artist's wife, it was painted in the winter of 1961-2 and finished early in 1962 (letter of 3 July 1967).

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.563, reproduced p.563

Post Painterly Abstraction

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