Untitled Artist: Tobi Kahn (American, born 1952)

1983–84

Modern and Contemporary Art

Not on view

Painted shortly before his critical breakthrough at the Guggenheim Museum’s 1985 exhibition New Horizons in American Art, Tobi Kahn’s Untitled updates the mystical precedents set by American landscape painters Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847–1917) and Ralph Albert Blakelock (1847–1919). With its roughly impastoed surface, earthy, bituminous palette, and biomorphic setting, Untitled evokes the ascetic spirituality of a desert place. The prominent brown rock-form jutting into the sky in the foreground—elementally solid—may reference the artist’s Jewish heritage and the concept of the “Rock of Israel,” an allusion to God.

Medium

Acrylic on board in an artist’s frame

Dimensions

unframed: 28 × 20 in. (71.1 × 50.8 cm)
framed: 35 × 27 in. (88.9 × 68.6 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of Georgene Simon Dreishpoon in memory of Dr. Irving H. Dreishpoon

Accession Number

2018.160.1

Culture

American

Period

20th century

Classification

Paintings

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Purchased directly from the artist by Dr. Irving and Georgene Dreishpoon
Object copyright
Not Assigned
Additional information

Signed

Signed 'Tobi Kahn | 84" on verso

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