The Ballantine

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The Ballantine

United States, 1958-1960
Paintings
Oil on canvas
72 × 72 in. (182.88 × 182.88 cm)
David E. Bright Bequest (M.67.25.20)
Currently on public view:
Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

Since gallery displays may change often, please contact us before you visit to make certain this item is on view.

Label

Franz Kline’s colliding swaths of black, grey, and white paint create a dynamic formal relationship that affords equal attention to each of the tones....
Franz Kline’s colliding swaths of black, grey, and white paint create a dynamic formal relationship that affords equal attention to each of the tones. While his gestural paint application is often compared to Asian calligraphy, Kline rejected this comparison. “I paint the white as well as the black, and the white is just as important,” he said, insisting that dramatic tension was at stake in his work. Like other Abstract Expressionist painters, Kline’s involvement in the physical act of painting is evident in his broad, gestural brushstrokes across a large canvas. Despite the haphazard feel of his lines—amplified by his use of a house painter’s brush—Kline carefully planned and reworked his paintings to achieve the desired composition.

Wall label, 2021.
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Bibliography

  • Selleck, Jack. Line. Worcester, MA: Davis Publications, 1974.
  • Donahue, Kenneth.  X, a Decade of Collecting:  1965-1975.  Los Angeles:  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1975.
  • Powell III, Earl A., Robert Winter, and Stephanie Barron. The Robert O. Anderson Building. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1986.