Untitled

Artist Ilya Bolotowsky (Born Russia, 1907–1981)

DateLate 1970s

MediumScreenprint on paper

DimensionsImage: 23 15/16 x 23 15/16 inches (60.8 x 60.8 cm)
Sheet: 25 7/8 x 34 13/16 inches (65.7 x 88.4 cm)

ClassificationsPrint

Credit LineGift of A. R. Daniel, M.D.

Object number1978.31.1

Collections

MODERN & CONTEMPORARY
RUSSIAN
WORKS ON PAPER

Editionedition of 125. There are also "roman numeraled" editions in this suite. The estate owns 5 of 25 of these.

Label TextIlya Bolotowsky immigrated to New York City from Russia in 1923 and, after studying at the National Academy of Design, helped found the American Abstract Artists group in 1936. Heavily influenced by the European avant-garde, the AAA was established to promote an advanced type of abstraction over the predominant social realist styles. Bolotowsky was greatly influenced by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) and, like him, explored shape, line, and color in their purest states in order to achieve flatness and forms that had no reference to the outside world. His geometric abstractions use straight lines within contained areas to create balanced and harmonious compositions. While a resurgence of interest in hard-edge abstraction in the 1960s lent his work a renewed sense of legitimacy, he was nevertheless a painter of an earlier generation, evidenced by a statement he made in 1969:

Nowadays, when paintings torture the retina, when music
gradually destroys the eardrum, there must, all the more, be
a need for an art that searches for new ways to achieve
harmony and equilibrium…