Red Desert
Primary
Carl Robert Holty
(Freiburg, Germany, 1900–New York, New York, 1973)
NationalityAmerican, North America
Date1965-1966
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsFramed: 60 3/4 x 54 13/16 in. (154.3 x 139.2 cm)
Canvas: 60 1/4 x 54 5/16 in. (153 x 138 cm)
Canvas: 60 1/4 x 54 5/16 in. (153 x 138 cm)
Credit LineBlanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Gift of Mari and James A. Michener, G1968.80
Rights Statement
Collection AreaModern and Contemporary Art
Object numberG1968.80
On View
Not on viewWorking in Paris and New York immediately before World War II, American-born Holty painted in a variety of abstract styles: his work at this time was associated with cubism, biomorphism, and Abstraction-Création. Upon his return to the U.S., he became a founding member of American Abstract Artists, a group that sought to develop an American abstraction that differed from both European abstraction and the then-popular style of American regionalism. Red Desert, the painting included here, comes from later in his career, when the artist was exploring a more organic abstraction in which amorphous planes of color interact and overlap to create washy fields reminiscent of light as it plays off the land.
Exhibitions
