Robert Ryman: 1961–1964

David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of early paintings by Robert Ryman (1930–2019) at the gallery’s 537 West 20th Street location in New York. Curated by Dieter Schwarz and organized in collaboration with the artist’s family, the exhibition focuses on the years 1961–1964. Composed primarily of significant loans from museums and private collections in the United States and Europe, this is one of the most extensive looks at this formative moment in Ryman’s career. A complementary exhibition exploring Ryman’s drawings will be held concurrently at David Zwirner London.

Ryman gained initial recognition for the work he made in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As a result, his paintings created prior to this period remain less well known to this day. Yet it was during the early 1960s that Ryman began to firmly establish the broad parameters of his radical and inventive practice. His paintings from these years reflect how, even at this early point, Ryman was already looking to interrogate and reinterpret the fundamental precepts of painting by experimenting with different supports and materials; deconstructing the relationship between frame and wall; and more broadly, investigating the visual, material, and experiential qualities that define the conditions in which a work of art is encountered. It was also at this time that the artist settled on the square as the primary format for his art and began experimenting with scale, a consequence, in part, of his move around 1961 to a studio space that afforded him the ability to work in larger formats.

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Learn about The Greenwich Collection, founded by Robert Ryman in 1987. The foundation is dedicated to preserving the integrity and enhancing the understanding of Robert Ryman’s work.

Image: Robert Ryman, Untitled, c. 1961. © 2023 Robert Ryman/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Private Collection.