biography of Al HELD (1928-2005)

Birth place: Brooklyn, NY

Addresses: NYC

Profession: Painter

Studied: ASL, 1948-49; Acad. Grande Chaumière, Paris, 1949-52

Exhibited: WMAA Biennial, 1963-81; AIC, 1964 ( Logan Medal); Systemic Painting, Guggenheim Mus., 1966; Jewish Mus., 1967; Documenta IV, Kassel, Germany, 1968; SFMA, 1968 (solo); Corcoran Gal. biennial, 1963; Corcoran Gal., 1968 (solo); Donald Morris Gal., Detroit, MI, 1970s; WMAA, 1974 (retrospective). Awards: Guggenheim fellowship, 1966.

Work: MoMA; WMAA; SFMA; Everson Mus., Syracuse, NY; Albright-Knox Gal., Buffalo, NY; Dayton AI; Greenville County MA, South Carolina; Brandeis Univ.; Geigy Chemical Corp.; Kunsthalle, Basel, Switzerland; Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY (Albany Mural," 1971)"

Comments: Held's style evolved from a politically oriented socialist-realist mode into an Abstract Expressionist manner in the 1950s. Influenced by Jackson Pollock and Piet Mondrian, he aimed to combine the subjectivity of Pollock with the objectivity of Mondrian. Again his style changed in the early 1960s, when he created large scale, brightly colored geometrical paintings, In the late 1960s he began making black and white paintings. Teaching: Yale Univ., New Haven, CT, 1962-78.

Sources: WW73; Marcia Tucker, Al Held (exh. cat., WMAA, 1974); Baigell, Dictionary;Barbara Rose, American Art Since 1900, A Critical History (Praeger, 1967); Al Held, exhib. catalogue (San Francisco Mus. Art); Gregory Battcock (editor), Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology (E.P. Dutton, 1968).