Artwork
Circle IV
Artist
Robert Goodnough
(American, 1917 - 2010)
DepartmentContemporary Art
Date1962
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions78.5 in. diameter
Credit LineSan Antonio Museum of Art, purchased with Museum Endowment Funds
Object number76.105.3
Copyright© Robert Goodnough
DescriptionCircular canvas with an abstract composition of parallel and intersecting rectangular forms that are outlined in black on a light ground. Many of the forms are boldly colored in hues of yellow, red, blue, green, and black.Label TextThe gridded structure of black lines and geometric forms in Robert Goodnough’s Circle IV demonstrates the influence of Piet Mondrian (Dutch, 1872–1944), a founder of the avant-garde De Stijl movement, which sought a universal modern aesthetic through radically simplified abstraction. The painterly drips, however, hint at Goodnough’s more expressive brushwork, seen in his painting The Chief on view nearby. In fact, Goodnough was associated with the second generation of Abstract Expressionists.
In the late 1940s, Goodnough attended Hans Hofmann’s summer art school (a painting by Hofmann is on view in this gallery) in Provincetown, Massachusetts, before graduating from New York University with a master’s degree in art education. He became friends with painters Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and others through the Eighth Street Club, or simply “The Club,” which a group of largely abstract painters in Manhattan founded in 1949. Weekly meetings were filled with volatile discussions and arguments, which sometimes continued, and became even more heated, at the nearby dive bar the Cedar Tavern.
(Label text, 2017)Not on view
Collections
Alma Nungarrayi Granites
Culture: Aboriginal Australians (Warlpiri language group)
2007
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
