Robert Ryman

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Robert Ryman bigraphy, stories - American artist

Robert Ryman : biography

May 30, 1930 –

Robert Ryman (born May 30, 1930) is an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He is best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings.http://www.phillipscollection.org/exhibitions/robert_ryman/index.aspx He lives and works in New York.

Literature

  • Robert Ryman: Critical Texts Since 1967, edited by Vittorio Colaizzi and Karsten Schubert. Ridinghouse, London 2009.
  • Christel Sauer (Hrsg.): Urs Raussmüller: Ryman Paintings and Ryman Exhibitions, Raussmüller Collection, Frauenfeld/Basel 2006, ISBN 978-3-905777-00-0
  • Christel Sauer (Hrsg.): Robert Ryman at Inverleith House Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Raussmüller Collection, Frauenfeld/Basel 2006, ISBN 978-3-905777-01-7
  • Christel Sauer (Hrsg.): Robert Ryman and Urs Raussmüller: Advancing the Experience Hallen für Neue Kunst, Schaffhausen, Raussmüller Collection, Basel 2010, ISBN 978-3-905777-06-2
  • Christel Sauer, Urs Raussmüller (Hrsg.): Robert Ryman, Schaffhausen 1991, ISBN 3-906352-03-x
  • Christel Sauer, Urs Raussmüller (Hrsg.): Robert Ryman: Versions, Schaffhausen 1992, ISBN 3-906352-50-2

Recognition and reception

A recipient of numerous honors, Ryman has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Scholarship (1974), the Skowhegan Medal from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1985). L&M Arts, New York/Los Angeles. Ryman has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1994, and assumed the role of the organization’s Vice President in 2003.

In 2005, Ryman was awarded the Praemium Imperiale.

2009 saw the publication of Robert Ryman: Critical Texts Since 1967, edited by Vittorio Colaizzi and Karsten Schubert and published by Ridinghouse. The book charts the gradual evolution of the reception of and reaction to Ryman’s art. A comprehensive selection of over 60 essays and exhibition reviews has been collated into one volume, including texts by some of the most influential art historians and critics: Yve-Alain Bois, Donald B. Kuspit, Lucy R. Lippard and others.

Exhibitions

Ryman had his first one man show at Paul Bianchini’s gallery, New York, in 1967 at the age of 36; his first show in Europe came the following year at the Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich. One year later, Ryman was included in When Attitudes Become Form, a seminal exhibition of works by Minimalist and Conceptual artists organized by the Kunsthalle Bern. His first one man show at a museum was in 1972 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, displaying thirty-eight of Ryman’s works from 1965 to 1972. Ryman’s works were represented in documentas 5 (1972), 6 (1977), and 7 (1982), in Kassel, in the Venice Biennale (1976, 1978, 1980), and in the Whitney Biennial (1977, 1987, 1995). His first retrospective was organized by the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, in 1974. Dia Art Foundation. In 1992, a major touring retrospective of Ryman’s paintings was mounted by the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Gallery, including venues such as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Robert Ryman is represented by Pace Gallery in New York, and Xavier Hufkens in Brussels.

Collections

The Hallen für Neue Kunst, a contemporary art museum in Schaffhausen, Switzerland has the largest public collection of Ryman’s work, permanently exhibiting 29 pieces created from 1959 to 2007. In 2010 Ryman undertook a major reinstallation of his galleries at Hallen für Neue Kunst. Returning to the museum in 2008 — for the first time in 12 years — to revisit the permanent exhibition of his work that was first installed in 1983, he decided to transform the galleries into a “gesamtkunstwerk” — a synthesis, or total experience, composed of 30 paintings from 50 years of work. Other major museums collecting his works include the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate, London.

Early life and career