| Synopsis: |
Robert Mangold (b.1937) is one of the most significant American painters to have emerged in the late twentieth century. His work is collected in the world's finest museums and he has exhibited internationally since the 1960s. This is the first ever and most comprehensive of Mangold's contribution to painting, with contributions by some of the most respected writers of contemporary art. Mangold was greatly influenced by the Abstract Expressionism, and his paintings maintain the large scale and bold immediacy associated with artists such as Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. At the same time, emerging in the 1960s alongside such artists as Richard Serra and Sol LeWitt, Mangold is often associated with Minimalism because of his straightforward and geometric compositions. In contrast to the hard-edged Minimalists, however, Mangold's gently curved paintings and subtle, evocative colours recall a variety of sources - from frescos to traditional Greek ceramics. With a beauty, tranquillity and sensitivity reminiscent of the work of Piero della Francesca, Mangold's art challenges the state of painting today, resulting in over thirty years' worth of fundamentally important avantgarde art - and some of the most majestically beautiful abstract paintings of the last half century. |