Untitled
Ed Clark American
Untitled exemplifies Clark’s mediation of gestural and hard-edged abstraction. This diptych features vibrant bands of blue, pink, yellow, ochre, and green, disrupted or bracketed by sobering blacks and whites that divide the canvases. Clark worked on the floor, pouring several layers of acrylic paint onto unprimed canvas and then using a push broom to spread paint energetically across the surface. Spontaneity and movement are implied not only by the swept and splattered marks of Untitled, but also by the painting’s potential to be exhibited in two orientations, with the swaths of color shown either horizontally or vertically. Clark developed his push broom technique in 1956 while living in Paris, where he had studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière on the G.I. Bill. That same year, he returned to New York, but eventually split his time between the two cities from the late 1960s.
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