Al hero

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Al Held (born October 12, 1928 in Brooklyn , New York City , USA , † July 27, 2005 in Camerata near Todi , Italy ) was an American painter of Abstract Expressionism and one of the most important exponents of Hard Edge painting was best known for his large-format, geometrically abstract paintings.

life and work

Al Held showed no interest in art in his youth. It was only in 1947, inspired by his friend Nicholas Krushenick , that he began to study at the Art Students League of New York . In 1949 he went to Paris for three years to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière . In 1953 he returned to New York.

After his first solo exhibition of abstract expressionist pictures in 1959, he began to create pictures with colorful, simple abstract geometric shapes. With this work he gained increasing recognition in America and Europe. In 1962 he became a teacher at Yale University , Faculty of Art until 1980.

In 1965, the critic Irving Sandler organized a major exhibition at New York University with works by Al Held, Knox Martin , Ronald Bladen , George Sugarman, and David Weinrib . In 1966, Held was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Logan Medal of the arts . In 1968 Al Held was represented at the 4th documenta in Kassel with 5 of his large-format Hard Edge pictures . He was also a participant in documenta 6 in 1977. From 1967 to the 1970s, he created exclusively black and white pictures. It was not until the late 1970s that he found his way back to color in his work.

In his later years, his paintings sold for up to a million dollars. Since 1984 he was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters . In 1994 Held was elected a member ( NA ) of the National Academy of Design . In 2005 he created large, colorful murals on the New York City subway system, between East 53rd Street and Lexington Avenue . At the age of 76, on July 27, 2005, Al Held was found dead in the swimming pool of his villa near Camerata near Todi, Italy. One assumes a natural death.

Literature and Sources

  • Exhibition catalog for the IV. Documenta: IV. Documenta. International exhibition ; Catalog: Volume 1: (Painting and Sculpture); Volume 2: (Graphics / Objects); Kassel 1968
  • Kimpel, Harald / Stengel, Karin: documenta IV 1968 International Exhibition - A Photographic Reconstruction (series of publications from the documenta archive); Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-524-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Members: Al Held. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 3, 2019 .
  2. ^ Nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians "H" / Held, Al NA 1994 ( Memento from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed June 26, 2015)
personal data
SURNAME Hero, Al
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American painter
DATE OF BIRTH October 12, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 2005
Place of death Camerata near Todi , Italy