Robert Ryman, General 52" x 52", 1970
Robert Ryman briefly explored the possibilities of serial painting in the 1970s, creating several series of pictures of the same material using the same color on the same surface. However, the dimensions of the individual pictures could vary. The first was an extensive series of pictures in enamel paint on corrugated cardboard, several of which he combined into groups and titled in Roman numerals. In contrast, the pictures in the General and Surface Veil series are individual works only exhibited as a complete series on one occasion.

Ryman had been working with enamel or lacquer paint since 1967, applying it with brushes of various sizes onto different painting grounds. He started by priming the fifteen paintings in the General series with the semi-gloss Enamelac so that the cotton fabric on which he was working would be completely sealed, remaining visible only on the sides of the stretcher bars. Once this was done, he then proceeded to apply a central square of lacquer paint to each of these grounds; this required five or six layers of paint, each of which was sanded down to create a uniform, reflective, bright white surface that contrasted as much as possible with the ground.

The dimensions of the General paintings range from 48 x 48 to 55 x 55 inches, increasing by half an inch from painting to painting. They were not made in any particular order; when they were first exhibited at the Fischbach Gallery in New York in 1971, Ryman hung them in the random order in which the shipping company had delivered them.

The importance he attached to the pictures' dimensions is evident in the fact that Ryman used them as part of the title. Around 1970, he began titling his paintings with brand names he found in the telephone directory. As he explained, the title General was taken from one of these brand names—“General something, General fabrication or something.” The title serves as an identifier for the picture, and, as Ryman said, he did not want to conflict with it.

Ryman used a stretcher bar with a consistent width of three and a half inches for all of the paintings. He used this to determine the width of the Enamelac frame around the central enamel surface, which was also consistent in size. This means that the proportions of the frame and square, and thus the effect of the enamel surface, vary slightly from painting to painting.

The works from the General series best convey Ryman's fascination with enamel paint because the surface of the paintings is very light-sensitive. As a result, they appear in ever-changing ways depending on the lighting. Ryman experimented with this effect as early as the first exhibition of the General pictures by illuminating only one side of the gallery walls, thereby changing the colors' appearance. These works perfectly represent Ryman's claim that the painting, in its conception and execution, focuses exclusively on the visible aspects of an image.
Dieter Schwarz
Freelance author and curator, former director of the Kunstmuseum Winterthur






Robert Ryman – From museum watchman to a celebrated New York artist
Upon completing his teacher training and following his stint as a reservist for the army during the Korean War, Robert Ryman came to New York in 1952. At the time, no one could have foreseen that he would become one of the most sought-after artists of his generation. Initially, he embarked on a career as a jazz musician, studied with the pianist Lenny Tristano, and made a living with odd jobs. In June 1953, he began working as a museum watchman at the Museum of Modern Art in New York to cover for someone on vacation, but he would remain there for the next seven years. As it turned out, this was a lucky coincidence, for it was during these years that he laid the foundation for his career as an artist. He created, among other things, his first paintings, which he presented to the museum's employees in 1958 for the first time.

Above all, it was during these years that Robert Ryman established close contacts with artists who introduced him to the New York art scene. In the mid-1950s, he and a few other employees met Mark Rothko at the museum's cafeteria. At that time, Rothko had already shown works in group exhibitions at the museum. Ryman also became friends with Dan Flavin and Sol LeWitt, who also worked there briefly. In the museum's framing shop, he met Nicholas Krushenick, who, together with his brother, ran the Brata Gallery, where Ryman presumably had his first group exhibition as early as the late 1950s. Under all these influences, he made his first monochrome work, “Untitled (Orange Painting),” in 1955, which he retrospectively described as his first professional painting worthwhile exhibiting. A few years later, he finally switched from the Museum of Modern Art to the Art Department of the New York Public Library, a position that still gave him enough time to devote to his art. Here, he met the art critic Lucy Lippard, whom he married in 1961. He discovered the advantages of the square format as a neutral space, began working in series, and increasingly focused on the color white.




Some ten years after his arrival in New York, Robert Ryman, a trained teacher and self-taught artist, had become established in the art metropolis. He had built a life in the Bowery, where many artists had studios at the time, and exhibited regularly in group exhibitions. However, the big breakthrough was still a long time coming. None of his works were sold at his first solo exhibition at the Bianchini Gallery in New York in 1967. It was only when the two German gallerists Konrad Fischer and Heiner Friedrich visited the artist in his studio and purchased his first works that the tide began to turn, as Ryman recalls:"That was the time I felt there was beginning to be some interest. I had a show in both galleries in Germany, and shortly after there were shows in Italy and Paris." (Robert Ryman, 1992, quoted from: Robert Storr, Robert Ryman, London 1993, p. 216). In the following years, he was represented in Harald Szeemann's 1969 exhibition “When Attitudes Become Form”, had a solo exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1972, and took part in documenta 5 in Kassel. A retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam followed in 1974; in 1978, he participated in the Venice Biennale. The “General” series was also created with the first international milestone shows during this prosperous period.

Robert Ryman's life's work in relation to white
The 15-part “General” series from 1970 combines the essential elements of Robert Ryman's artistic endeavors in many ways: white, serial, and square, as well as analytical and calculated in conception and planning. Although Robert Ryman focuses on the various tonal values of white when choosing his materials, the contrast between them could hardly be more striking: the perfectly homogeneous, high-gloss enamel layer in the center, surrounded by raw canvas that appears to be unfinished. Instead of hard edges between the distinct color fields, as we know from Minimal Art, the transitions are much more homogeneous, with soft lines and cloudy efflorescence. Thus, despite their common basic concept, a surprisingly intuitive signature emerges in each of the 15 works from the series. This suggests a connection to Mark Rothko, who never extended his color fields to the edge of the canvas but always stopped shortly before.

Robert Ryman's intensive examination of the color white is no exception in the history of modern painting. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, Kasimir Malevich's work “White on White” (also titled “White Square on White”) from 1918 was a closely related precursor to Robert Ryman's “General” series. This work can undoubtedly be regarded as a highlight of white-on-white painting. Likewise, Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni in Italy are well-known representatives of an art movement based on the color white. In German Informalism, Raimund Girke and Gerhard Hoehme are also known to have dedicated themselves to this medium, often called a non-color. Robert Ryman's use of white thus parallels historical models and comparable art movements that emerged around the same time.


He explicitly does not consider himself a painter of white pictures. When asked whether he created white paintings, he once replied: "I don't think of myself as making white paintings. I make paintings; I'm a painter. White paint is my medium. There's a lot of color involved. I don't mean color like red, green, and yellow; but, color, in that sense" (Robert Ryman, quoted from: Phyllis Tuchman, An Interview with Robert Ryman, Artforum, vol. 9, no. 9, Mai 1971). Even though the color white dominates the visual appearance of his art, it should be understood as more than just one component in his overall concept. For Ryman, color has no symbolic, historical, or mystical significance. On the contrary, it liberates him from such attributions and grants him the freedom to use color as a material. In his work, Robert Ryman explores the fundamental components of painting, thereby wholly ignoring traditional content and levels of interpretation.

Closely related to Minimal Art and Conceptual Art, his work is considered analytical painting, a conceptual and, at the same time, painterly study of materials, proportions, spatial and light conditions, and thus of all the basic principles that make painterly illusions possible in the first place. Or in his words: "A painting has to do with, well, with paint, basically [.] It's never so important what you paint, it's how you do it. And that's really the whole problem, I mean, the essence of painting, or of anything, I guess" (Robert Ryman). At the core of his works, they are invariably conceived and planned in an analytical and calculating way. However, as the “General” series demonstrated, they are also executed highly intuitively and have a sensual effect. This has given rise to a body of work of immense diversity, which stands out from the cool calculation of Minimal Art and the theoretical dominance of Conceptual Art due to its great individual expressiveness. It is a rare talent that characterizes Robert Ryman's oeuvre in a very special way. [AR]