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Classification: Print

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Image of The Space Between the Two

Al Held
American, 1928–2005

The Space Between the Two

1992

Object Type: Print
Creation Place: North America, American, California
Dimensions:
32 5/8 in. x 28 3/4 in. (82.87 cm x 73.03 cm)
Medium and Support: Color spit bite aquatint on paper
Accession Number: 1998.0009.0001

Credit Line: Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
Copyright: © The Estate of Al Held. Licensed by ARS, New York, NY


American painter Al Held's interest in art developed almost by accident. After signing up for a single drawing class at the Art Students League in New York City, he eventually found himself enrolled in classes at the Art Students League full time. His left-leaning political views and interest in social realism prompted him to leave the Art Students League in 1950 to study in Mexico at the school of muralist, David Alfaro Siquieros (1896-1974). After leaving Mexico, he studied in Paris and returned to New York City, where his friendship with painter Sam Francis prompted a major change in his style, as his paintings became looser and larger, however the overall composition remained a tight rhythm of forms. Held switched from oil paint to acrylics, and transformed his aesthetic by using all of his pigments directly from the tube with no mixing of paints.

Completed during the summer 1992 residency at San Francisco's Crown Pojnt Press, "The Space Between the Two" followed the subtle change to Held’s colors. The geometric objects no longer consisted of large flat planes of color, but instead changed into planes of varying tones and values of a specific primary color. This is also visable in other prints and paintings throughout the 1990s. Held’s prints are worked in a complex method during a one-hour period with five printers working simultaneously, a total of five person-hours for a single sheet.

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