2002.312: Study for Mural

Identification and Creation

Object Number

2002.312

People

Alfred Jensen, American (Guatemala City 1903 - 1981 Livingston, NJ)

Title

Study for Mural

Other Titles

Alternate Title: Study for Mural at Albany Mall

Classification

Paintings

Work Type

painting

Date

1968

Culture

American

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/117125

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

173.4 x 120 cm (68 1/4 x 47 1/4 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• Signed: on verso of each panel, w/ title and date
• label: verso: several labels preserved on verso

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Estate of George Bellows.
Pace Wildenstein, sold to Harvard University Art Museums, 2002.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Purchase through the generosity of Arne and Milly Glimcher, The Broad Art Foundation and Constance R. Caplan in honor of James Cuno

Copyright

© Estate of Alfred Jensen / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Accession Year

2002

Object Number

2002.312

Division

Modern and Contemporary Art

Contact

am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Descriptions

Description

Thickly painted abstraction on two joined stretchers surrounded by simple wooden strip frame.

Commentary

Jensen is a major post-war American abstract painter whose importance was underscored most recently by a retrospective at Dia in New York. While of the abstract expressionist generation, he was much admired by minimalist and conceptualist artists (Judd, Bochner) for his dazzling, monumental, thickly painted diagrams. This work is a study for one section of “Kronos,” the 5-panel mural that he executed in 1968 for the Empire State Plaza art collection in Albany, where it still hangs--a convenient circumstance that will allow students to study the painting and then see the mural first-hand.

Publication History

• Linda L. Cathcart and Marcia Tucker, Alfred Jensen : paintings and diagrams from the years 1957-1977, exh. cat., Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, NY, 1978), p. 64, no. 33, illustrated
• Alfred Jensen, Alfred Jensen: Paintings, exh. cat., Pace Gallery (New York, NY, 1991), illustrated

Exhibition History

• Alfred Jensen: Paintings and Diagrams from the Years 1957-1977, Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, San Diego, 07/03/1978 - 08/06/1978; University of Colorado Museum, Boulder, 07/03/1978 - 08/06/1978; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 08/18/1978 - 10/01/1978
• Alfred Jensen: Where the Gods Reside. Paintings 1963-1968, Pace Gallery, 02/09/1996 - 03/09/1996

Verification Level