Exceptional Prints: Donald Judd

Widely known for his three-dimensional works, Donald Judd also articulated his rich visual vocabulary through printing techniques, including aquatint, etching, screenprinting, and, primarily, woodcuts. Comprising ten pairs, this edition of twenty woodcuts—one of the largest suites of prints in Judd’s body of work—was completed by Judd Foundation this year, using the original proofs from 1992 to 1993. Similar to Judd’s “stacks”—groups of wall-mounted boxes that form columns of alternating solids and voids—these prints reflect the artist's decades-long interest in symmetry, color, material, and space.

Donald Judd

Untitled

, 1992–1993/2020

Set of twenty (20) woodcuts in cadmium red, cadmium yellow, cadmium orange, ultramarine blue, cerulean blue, cobalt blue, permanent green, viridian green, black, and alizarin crimson on handmade Korean paper

Each: 23 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches (60 x 80 cm)

Edition of 25 (Foundation Stamped), 5 AP

José Otero and Donald Judd at Bernstein Brothers, Inc., New York, 1968. Photo © Elizabeth Baker. Courtesy Judd Foundation Archives, Marfa, Texas

Judd made his first prints in 1951 while studying at the Art Students League in New York. Working first with lithographs, Judd turned to woodcuts as his dominant print medium as early as 1953. His father, Roy Judd, fabricated the original woodblocks for what would become his first large-scale series of prints. In 1964, Judd began to delegate the fabrication for his three-dimensional works. It was his early experience with printmaking that led to his working with fabricators and the “un-mediated art making” of his sculptural forms.

Donald Judd in his print studio at La Mansana de Chinati/The Block, Marfa, Texas. Photo by Jamie Dearing © Judd Foundation. Jamie Dearing Papers, Judd Foundation Archives, Marfa, Texas

The mechanical and collaborative components of printmaking had clear correlations with what became known as Judd’s aesthetic of minimalism (though he protested the term), and the medium continued to serve as an avenue for Judd’s continued exploration of space, color, and material.

“An example of dealing with intentionality is the progress, the change, of the prints. They take a long time.”

—Donald Judd

Donald Judd, untitled, 1992–1993/2020 (detail). Arber and Son Editions, Marfa, Texas. Photo by Alex Marks © Judd Foundation

When Judd visited South Korea for a solo exhibition at Inkong Gallery in the spring of 1991, he was invited to create a set of prints. For this edition, he selected a traditional local paper known as hanji, handmade from the inner bark of mulberry plants from Korean mountainsides, which he brought back with him to Marfa, Texas.

Donald Judd, untitled, 1992–1993/2020, in progress. Arber and Sons Editions, Marfa, Texas. Photo Alex Marks © Judd Foundation

Two proofs were made from 1992 to 1993 with Tamarind master printer Robert Arber in Marfa, though Judd was not able to complete the edition before he passed away in 1994. In 2020, Judd Foundation worked with Arber to complete the edition and publish the prints using the original proofs, with proceeds directed toward Judd Foundation’s Marfa Restoration Plan.

Donald Judd, untitled, 1992–1993/2020 (detail). Arber and Son Editions, Marfa, Texas. Photo Alex Marks © Judd Foundation.

While Judd regularly printed in one or two colors in his earlier works, by the mid-1980s he began using multiple colors in his woodcuts. This edition marks Judd’s most extensive use of color in his print practice. The wood grain from the mahogany block features prominently in the large swaths of color.

“To examine Judd’s prints ... is to encounter something we rarely associate with this artist: the materiality of process.”

—Jeffrey Weiss, in Donald Judd: Woodcuts, 2008

Donald Judd, untitled, 1992–1993/2020, in progress. Arber and Sons Editions, Marfa, Texas. Photo Alex Marks © Judd Foundation

Donald Judd, drawing for prints, 1992. Pencil on paper, 8 1/2 x 11 inches (21.6 x 27.9 cm). Courtesy Judd Foundation Archives, Marfa, Texas

In this series, each pair includes one impression with a printed frame of color and another where the same color is reversed and printed in the interior space of the frame. The dividing vertical and horizontal lines are specific to each pair, creating proportions of 1:2, 1:3, 1:4, and 1:5.

Donald Judd, untitled, 1992–1993/2020 (detail). Photo by Alex Marks © Judd Foundation

“He continually wants to see the image and the counter image, opposed and juxtaposed. They clarify and punctuate each other.”

—Mariette Josephus Jitta, in Donald Judd: Prints and Works in Editions, A Catalogue Raisonné, 1993

In 1991, Judd purchased the Print Building, previously home to a bank, post office, and the Crews Hotel, with the intention of installing a complete collection of his prints across twenty-eight rooms on the top floor.

Images in GIF: Josef Albers, Midnight + Noon VI, from Midnight + Noon, 1964; Honoré Daumier, Le Salon de 1857; Stuart Davis, Detail Study for Cliché, 1957

Judd’s long-term work with prints and collection of works by other artists, including Josef Albers, Stuart Davis, and Honoré Daumier, attest to his interest in the relationship between artists’ prints and their broader practices. These prints are installed throughout Judd’s spaces in New York and Texas.

Installation view, Judd, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2020. Digital image © 2020 The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo by Jonathan Muzikar All Donald Judd Artwork © 2020 Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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