Robert Ryman

Robert Ryman – At first it was jazz music that fascinated him

Robert Ryman was born on 30 May 1930 in Nashville, Tennessee. After graduating high school in 1948, he initially chose a career as teacher and studied with this in mind at the Tennessee Polytechnic Institute in Cookeville and at the George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville. Military service followed; while stationed in Alabama, he played the saxophone with increasing enthusiasm and following his discharge, Ryman decided to earn his living as a professional saxophone player. In New York he took lessons with the jazz musician Lennie Tristano and paid his way with a position as security man at the Museum of Modern Art. There he met the minimalists Dan Flavin and Sol LeWitt who were also working at the museum. His job at MoMA gave Robert Ryman plenty of time to study the art on display, first and foremost the work of Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, and in 1957 he met Mark Rothko in the museum cafeteria.

The colour white as the dominant keynote of an artist’s career

Robert Ryman was so taken by Abstract Expressionism as championed by Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock, that he finally decided to try painting himself. Although he temporarily attended a painting class, he taught himself the majority of his unique and unmistakable style. At a party in 1958 celebrating the reopening of the Museum of Modern Art – that had been previously damaged by fire – he met the feminist art critic Lucy Lippard, whom he would marry in 1961. The gallerist Paul Bianchini had previously sponsored Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, and he also helped Robert Ryman with his first solo exhibition. Ryman’s first pictures were predominantly orange, but he later used almost exclusively white. He preferred to carry out his artistic work in great seclusion, only rarely allowing outsiders access to his studio. What he did there, however, quickly enraptured the art world and led to numerous exhibitions all over the world. 

Internationally successful key figure of Minimalism

Robert Ryman took part in the fifth Documenta in Kassel in 1972, Documenta 6 in 1977 and finally Documenta 7 in 1982. He exhibited at the Biennale di Venezia four times, and was a guest at the Whitney Biennale three times. He has received prizes and awards for his work, including the Praemium Imperiale and the Roswitha Haftmann Prize, and has been a valuable member of the National Academy of Design since 2005. As difficult as it is to categorise Robert Ryman’s work, his position as a key figure of Minimalism and Analytical Painting is undisputed, and has influenced international artists such as the Brazilian Fernanda Gomes. His two sons are also active as artists.