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Manny Farber

American
(1917–2008)

Untitled
1967-1975

Collage
115 x 83 in. (292.1 x 210.82 cm)
Gift of the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation and the Kathryn C. Wanlass Foundation
2008.16

Between 1967 and 1975, Manny Farber made large abstract paintings on paper. It was a fertile period for new types of abstraction in American art, and Farber’s paintings contributed to that creative moment in a way that has not been fully acknowledged. These works pit simplicity against complexity. Their unconventional shapes are pleasingly elemental: a circle, a fanlike arc, a fusion of two partial triangles, and so on. At first, the surfaces look as simple as the shapes; these works are dominated by one or two colors, yet the closer you look, the more variations and incidents you see: a welter of lines creates meandering patterns; drips and splotches provide flourishes of contrasting color.

Along with their shape and color, Farber’s labor-intensive method of construction gives these paintings their distinctive identity. He took large squares of kraft paper, joined them together with one-inch seams, and then cut them into their defining shapes. He used multiple layers to strengthen the surfaces, applying paint with rollers to both sides. (Thus there is no front and no back; these are two-sided paintings.) He soaked them in water between coats of paint, dragged string across them to create lines, and drew on them as well.

Farber’s abstractions share affinities with the color-field painting of Morris Louis and Helen Frankenthaler, among others, though his devotion to process also connects him to artists like Richard Serra and Barry Le Va. These works also look back to Jackson Pollock’s all-over canvases and his method of working on the floor. (Farber was an early, perceptive reviewer of Pollock’s paintings.) Farber’s abstract paintings are an absorbing chapter in the saga of an artist who went on to do luminous figurative work from the 1970s until his death in 2008.

Robert L. Pincus

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