- Artist/Maker:
- David Novros
- Bio:
- American, b. 1941
- Title:
- Untitled
- Date:
- 1965
- Medium:
- Acrylic on canvas panels
- Dimensions:
- 114 × 56 1/2 × 2 in. (289.6 × 143.5 × 5.1 cm)
- Credit Line:
- Gift of The Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation
- Accession Number:
- 2021-17a-b
Not On View
David Novros made Untitled the first year he lived in New York City. To describe shaped, multicomponent canvases like this one—which he continued to make through the end of the 1960s—he used the term “portable mural.”
Novros centers his practice on what he terms “painting as place,” an idea that took root during a trip to Europe between 1963 and 1964. The painted architecture he saw at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, for example, suggested a new kind of painting that expanded beyond the rectangular frame. Like many of his peers, Novros considers the wall the ground for his paintings. The artist tests painting’s ability to exist as both object and image, a physical thing and an intangible idea. He plays with these seemingly opposing concepts, making work that engages viewers’ bodies and their eyes, orienting them to the work in space as well as to the space itself.
Novros centers his practice on what he terms “painting as place,” an idea that took root during a trip to Europe between 1963 and 1964. The painted architecture he saw at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, for example, suggested a new kind of painting that expanded beyond the rectangular frame. Like many of his peers, Novros considers the wall the ground for his paintings. The artist tests painting’s ability to exist as both object and image, a physical thing and an intangible idea. He plays with these seemingly opposing concepts, making work that engages viewers’ bodies and their eyes, orienting them to the work in space as well as to the space itself.
Information may change as a result of ongoing research.