Throughout his career, Robert Ryman has attempted to eliminate illusionism and outside references from his work, focusing instead on the fundamental properties of the materials he employs. He has confined himself to the color white, yet disclaims its importance. “It was never my intention to make white paintings,” he insisted in a 1986 interview with critic Nancy Grimes. “And it still isn’t. . . . The white is just a means of exposing other elements of the painting.” These “other elements” include varieties of paint (oil and acrylic) and supports (canvas, paper, and metals), as well as the process of binding them. He investigates the properties of these elements methodically, yet responds spontaneously to the unpredictable exigencies caused by their interaction.

Ryman’s Classico 4 is one of a series of compositions consisting of multi-panel paintings on a specific type of paper called Classico. For each work in the series, Ryman attached a configuration of heavy, creamy white sheets of the paper to a wall with masking tape, painted the sheets with a shiny white acrylic paint, removed the tape when the sheets were dry, mounted them on foamcore, and reattached them to the wall. The built-up paint edge tracing the outline of masking tape and the ripped paper left behind give witness to the process of creation. The various works in the Classico series differ in the organization of paper sheets, the configuration of tape traces, and the painted shape, yet they share an emphasis on the thinness of the support surface in its alignment with the wall and the monumentality conceived as an accumulation of parts.

Just as the Classico works were titled after the type of paper used as a medium, the so-called Surface Veil works were named for the brand of fiberglass upon which the smaller pieces in this group were painted. Surface Veil I, II, and III are among four 12-foot square paintings from the series that were executed not on fiber-glass but on cotton or linen. In each of these works the pigment appears to form a membrane over the support due to the differing degrees of opacity and translucence in the white paint juxtaposed with areas where less of it has been applied, leaving the fabric exposed. These disruptions in the painting’s skin often mark the literal pauses between the artist’s working sessions.

Jennifer Blessing

Transferred from Fishbach Gallery, New York, to Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf, 1968; purchased by Panza in 1971; purchased by Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1991.

Solo
Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf, Robert Ryman: Bilder, November 21–December 17, 1968.

Group
Stadthalle Düsseldorf and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (organized by Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Kunstmuseum, and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf), Das Bild einer Geschichte 1956/1976: Die Sammlung Panza di Biumo. Die Geschichte eines Bildes: Action painting, Newdada, Pop art [more], Minimal Art, Conceptual, Environmental Art, September 19–October 12, 1980. Traveled to Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, Minimal + Conceptual art [more] aus der Sammlung Panza, November 9, 1980–June 28, 1981. The work was exhibited at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf only. German catalogue by Germano Celant (Milan: Electa International, 1980): p. 253 (illus.). Swiss edition by Franz Meyer: no reference to the work.

Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Modern and Contemporary: Painting and Sculpture from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, September 9–December 9, 1990 (Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, organizer). Catalogue (Venice: Peggy Guggenheim Collection, 1990), unpag. (illus.).

Guggenheim Museum SoHo, New York, From Brancusi to Bourgeois: Aspects of the Guggenheim Collection, June 28–September 6, 1992. Section devoted to Ryman closed September 27, 1992.

Art of This Century: The Guggenheim Museum and Its Collection. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1993, 2d ed. 1997. Essays by Thomas Krens, Andrea Feeser, Lisa Dennison, Michael Govan, Jennifer Blessing, Diane Waldman, Nancy Spector, Julia Brown, and Clare Bell; p. 237 (illus.).

Dossier Ryman, Macula (Paris), no. 3–4 (1978), p. 123 (illus. shows the work at Konrad Fischer Galerie, 1968, fig. 21).

Fischer, Dorothee, ed. Galerie mit Bleistift Fischer: Austellungen bei Konrad Fischer Düsseldorf, Oktober 1967–Oktober 1992. Bielefeld: Edition Marzona, 1993, p. 25 (illus.).

Galloway, David. “Report from Italy: Count Panza Divests.” Art in America (New York) 72, no. 11 (December 1984), p. 10 (illus. shows the work in Varese).

Knight, Christopher. Art of the Sixties and Seventies, pp. 103 (plate 65), 269. Revised and expanded English edition: pp. 127 (plate 96), 310. French edition: pp. 103 (plate 65), 269. Italian edition: pp. 103 (plate 65), 269. Revised and expanded Italian edition: pp. 127 (plate 96), 310.

Saccardo, P. Alessio. Introduction. In Robert Ryman: Exhibition of Works (exh. cat.). Milan: Galleria San Fedele, 1973. Texts by Luca M. Venturi and Ryman; unpag. (illus.).

Spector, Nancy, ed. Guggenheim Museum Collection: A to Z. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1992, 2d ed. 2001, p. 298 (illus.), 299.

Storr, Robert. Robert Ryman (exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York). London: Tate Gallery Publications, 1993, p. 126. Spanish edition: Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 1993, p. 144. In Spanish and English.