Donald Judd
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Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with
minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...
(a term he nonetheless stridently disavowed).Tate Modern websit
"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd"
Retrieved on February 19, 2009.
In his work, Judd sought
autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one' ...
and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy. He is generally considered the leading international exponent of "minimalism," and its most important theoretician through such writings as "Specific Objects" (1964).Chilvers, Ian & Glaves-Smith, John eds., Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. p. 351 Judd voiced his unorthodox perception of minimalism in ''Arts Yearbook 8,'' where he says, "The new three dimensional work doesn't constitute a movement, school, or style. The common aspects are too general and too little common to define a movement. The differences are greater than the similarities."


Early life and education

Judd was born in Excelsior Springs,
Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
. From 1946 to 1947, he served in the Army as an engineer, and in 1948, he enrolled in the
College of William and Mary The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William ...
. Later, he transferred to Columbia University School of General Studies where he earned a bachelor's degree in
philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...
and where he worked towards a master's in art history under Rudolf Wittkower and Meyer Schapiro while attending classes at the
Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may st ...
. From 1959 to 1965, he wrote art criticism for major American art magazines. In 1968, he bought a five-story cast-iron building at 101
Spring Street Spring Street may refer to: * Spring Street (Los Angeles), USA * Spring Street (Manhattan), New York City, USA * Spring Street, Melbourne, Australia * Spring Street, Singapore * Spring St (website), a US based lifestyle website Subway and trolle ...
for less than $70,000. Judd used the building (designed by Nicholas Whyte and built in 1870) as his New York residence and studio, and during the next 25 years, renovated it floor by floor, occasionally installing works he purchased or commissioned from other artists.


Work


Early work

In the late 1940s, Donald Judd began to practice as a painter. His first solo exhibition, of
expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...
paintings, at the Panoras Gallery in New York, opened in 1957. From the mid-1950s to 1961, as he started to explore the medium of the
woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas tha ...
, Judd progressively moved from figurative to increasingly abstract imagery, first carving organic rounded shapes, then moving on to the painstaking craftsmanship of straight lines and angles. His artistic style soon moved away from illusory media and embraced constructions in which materiality was central to the work. He would not have another one person show until the
Green Gallery The Green Gallery was an art gallery that operated between 1960 and 1965 at 15 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City. The gallery's director was Richard Bellamy, and its financial backer was the art collector Robert Scull. Green Gallery ...
in 1963, an exhibition of works that he finally thought worthy of showing. By 1963 Judd had established an essential vocabulary of forms — ‘stacks’, ‘boxes’ and ‘ progressions’ — which preoccupied him for the next thirty years. Most of his output was in freestanding " specific objects" (the name of his seminal essay of 1965 published in Arts Yearbook 8, 1965), that used simple, often repeated forms to explore space and the use of space. Humble materials such as
metal A metal (from ancient Greek, Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, e ...
s, industrial
plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...
,
concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...
and color-impregnated Plexiglas became staples of his career. Judd's first floor box structure was made in 1964, and his first floor box using Plexiglas followed one year later. Also by 1964, he began work on wall-mounted sculptures, and first developed the curved progression format of these works in 1964 as a development from his work on an untitled floor piece that set a hollow pipe into a solid wooden block.Donald Judd, ''Untitled (76–32 Bernstein)'' (1976)
Christie's New York, Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, May 8, 2012.
While Judd executed early works himself (in collaboration with his father, Roy Judd), in 1964 he began delegating fabrication to professional artisans and manufacturers (such as the industrial manufacturers Bernstein Brothers) based on his drawings. In 1965, Judd created his first stack, an arrangement of identical iron units stretching from floor to ceiling. As he abandoned painting for sculpture in the early 1960s, he wrote the essay “Specific Objects” in 1964.Chilvers, Ian & Glaves-Smith, John eds., Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. pp. 350-351 In his essay, Judd found a starting point for a new territory for American art, and a simultaneous rejection of residual inherited European artistic values, these values being illusion and represented space, as opposed to real space. He pointed to evidence of this development in the works of an array of artists active in New York at the time, including H.C. Westermann,
Lucas Samaras Lucas Samaras (born 1936) is a Greek-American artist. Early life and education Samaras was born in Kastoria, Greece. He studied at Rutgers University on a scholarship, where he met Allan Kaprow and George Segal. Career Samaras participated in ...
, John Chamberlain, Jasper Johns, Dan Flavin, George Earl Ortman and
Lee Bontecou Lee Bontecou (January 15, 1931 – November 8, 2022) was an American sculptor and printmaker and a pioneer figure in the New York art world. She kept her work consistently in a recognizable style, and received broad recognition in the 1960s. Bont ...
. The works that Judd had fabricated inhabited a space not then comfortably classifiable as either painting or sculpture and in fact he refused to call them sculpture, pointing out that they were not sculpted but made by small fabricators using industrial processes. That the categorical identity of such objects was itself in question, and that they avoided easy association with well-worn and over-familiar conventions, was a part of their value for Judd. He displayed two pieces in the seminal 1966 exhibit, " Primary Structures" at the Jewish Museum in New York where, during a panel discussion of the work, he challenged Mark di Suvero's assertion that real artists make their own art. He replied that methods should not matter as long as the results create art; a groundbreaking concept in the accepted creation process. In 1968, the
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
staged a retrospective of his work which included none of his early paintings. In 1968, Judd bought a five-story building in New York that allowed him to start placing his work in a more permanent manner than was possible in gallery or museum shows. This would later lead him to push for permanent installations for his work and that of others, as he believed that temporary exhibitions, being designed by curators for the public, placed the art itself in the background, ultimately degrading it due to incompetency or incomprehension. This would become a major preoccupation as the idea of permanent installation grew in importance and his distaste for the art world grew in equal proportion.


Mature work

In the early seventies Judd started making annual trips to
Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...
with his family. He was affected by the clean, empty desert and this strong attachment to the land would remain with him for the rest of his life. In 1971 he rented a house in Marfa, Texas, where he would later buy numerous buildings and acquired over 32,000 acres (130 km2) of ranch land, collectively known as Ayala de Chinati. During this decade, Judd's art increased in scale and complexity. He started making room sized installations that made the spaces themselves his playground and the viewing of his art a visceral, physical experience. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he produced radical work that eschewed the classical European ideals of representational sculpture. Judd believed that art should not represent anything, that it should unequivocally stand on its own and simply exist. His aesthetic followed his own strict rules against illusion and falsity, producing work that was clear, strong and definite. Supported by a grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
,
Northern Kentucky University Northern Kentucky University is a public university in Highland Heights, Kentucky. It is primarily an undergraduate institution with over 14,000 students; over 12,000 are undergraduate students and nearly 2,000 are graduate students. Northern ...
commissioned Judd with a aluminum sculpture that was unveiled in the middle of the school's campus in 1976. Another commission, ''Untitled'' (1984), a three-part sculpture out of concrete with steel reinforcements, was installed at Laumeier Sculpture Park.Donald Judd
Laumeier Sculpture Park, St Louis.
Judd started using unpainted plywood in the early 1970s, a material the artist embraced for its durable structural qualities, which enabled him to expand the size of his works while avoiding the problem of bending or buckling. Plywood had been the staple of his art earlier, but never unpainted. He later began using Cor-ten steel in the 1980s for a small number of large-scale outdoor pieces, and by 1989 would create single and multi-part works with the material. The Cor-ten works are unique in that they are the only works the artist fabricated in Marfa, Texas. The artist began working with enamel on aluminum in 1984, when he commissioned Lehni AG in Switzerland to construct works by bending and riveting thin sheets of the material, a process Judd previously used to create furniture. These pieces were initially created for a temporary outdoor exhibition in Merian Park outside
Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (B ...
. Judd would continue to produce pieces using these techniques through the early 1990s. Judd’s work with enamel on aluminum greatly expanded his palette of colors, which had previously been restricted to the colors of anodized metal and Plexiglas, and led to the use of more than two colors in an individual artwork. Combining a wide range of colors, he used the material to create five large-scale floor pieces and many horizontal wall works in unique variations of color and size. Judd’s only known work in granite, an untitled Sierra White granite floor piece from 1978, measures 72 x 144 x 12". The structure is composed of two vertical slabs that rest on the floor, to which the bottom component is conjoined, and the ceiling of the structure extends to the outer edges of the vertical walls. In 1990, Judd opened an atelier in an old liquor factory from 1920 at Mülheimer Hafen in
Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
, Germany.


Works in edition

Over the course of four decades, Donald Judd created hundreds of prints using aquatint, etching, and screen print techniques though woodcut was his primary print medium. Judd began to make figurative prints in 1951 while at the Art Students League, transitioning to abstract images by the mid-1950s. Working first with lithographs, Judd shifted his attention to woodcuts, which became his dominant print medium as early as 1953. As a printmaker, Judd investigated many of the same issues of form and color that are found in his paintings and three-dimensional works. In 1961 Judd conceived and designed a parallelogram woodcut series. This is based on thirteen different patterns of twelve parallel lines, and their mirror images, thus there are 26 prints in total. Within the parallelogram woodcut series there exists one exceptional, experimental impression of Untitled (6-L) (1969), now in the Palmer Museum of Art, University Park, Pennsylvania. Rejecting the more traditional rectangular paper shape, this impression of Untitled (6-L) is cut into the shape of a parallelogram. Between the years 1967 and 1992, Judd made eight different sets of works in editions ranging from three to two hundred in a range of materials: stainless steel, galvanized iron, cold-rolled steel, anodized aluminum, acrylic sheet, and wood.


Furniture design and architecture

Judd also worked with furniture, design, and architecture. He was careful to distinguish his design practice from his artwork, writing in 1993:
The configuration and the scale of art cannot be transposed into furniture and architecture. The intent of art is different from that of the latter, which must be functional. If a chair or a building is not functional, if it appears to be only art, it is ridiculous. The art of a chair is not its resemblance to art, but is partly its reasonableness, usefulness and scale as a chair... A work of art exists as itself; a chair exists as a chair itself.
The first furniture, a bed and a sink, Judd designed in 1970 for Spring Street. After he moved from New York to Marfa his designs started to include chairs, beds, shelves, desks and tables. Judd was initially prompted to design furniture by his own dissatisfaction with what was commercially available in Marfa. Early furniture was made by Judd of rough, lumberyard-cut pine but he continually refined the construction of the wooden pieces, employing craftspeople using a variety of techniques and materials around the world. Judd's activity in architecture and furniture design increased beginning around 1978, at which time he was involved professionally and romantically with
Lauretta Vinciarelli Lauretta Vinciarelli (1943 – August 3, 2011) was an artist, architect, and professor of architecture at the collegiate level. Background and education Born in Arbe, Italy, Lauretta Vinciarelli was the daughter of Alberto and Annunciata Cenc ...
, an Italian-born architect and artist. Vinciarelli lived and worked with Judd in Marfa and New York for roughly a decade and collaborated with him on projects for Providence and Cleveland, and her influence can be seen on his architecture and furniture design. In fact, in a 1986 article published in ''
Architectural Digest ''Architectural Digest'' is an American monthly magazine founded in 1920. Its principal subjects are interior design and landscaping, rather than pure external architecture. The magazine is published by Condé Nast, which also publishes internati ...
,'' William C. Agee stated that Judd and Vinciarelli were "starting a firm." At the time of his death, he was working on a series of fountains commissioned by the city of
Winterthur , neighboring_municipalities = Brütten, Dinhard, Elsau, Hettlingen, Illnau-Effretikon, Kyburg, Lindau, Neftenbach, Oberembrach, Pfungen, Rickenbach, Schlatt, Seuzach, Wiesendangen, Zell , twintowns = Hall in Tirol (Austria ...
in 1991, Switzerland, and a new glass facade for a railroad station in
Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (B ...
, Switzerland.Roberta Smith
''Donald Judd, Leading Minimalist Sculptor, Dies at 65''
New York Times, February 13, 1994. Accessed January 31, 2011.
In 1984, Judd commissioned Lehni AG, the fabricator of his multi-colored works in Dübendorf, Switzerland to produce his furniture designs in sheet metal, in finishes of monochrome colored
powdercoat Powder coating is a type of coating that is applied as a free-flowing, dry powder. Unlike conventional liquid paint which is delivered via an evaporating solvent, powder coating is typically applied electrostatically and then cured under heat or ...
based on the
RAL colour standard RAL is a colour management system used in Europe that is created and administrated by the German (RAL non-profit LLC), which is a subsidiary of the German . In colloquial speech RAL refers to the RAL Classic system, mainly used for varnish a ...
, clear anodized aluminium, or solid copper. Today, Lehni AG still fabricates Judd metal furniture in 21 colors, which are sold through the Judd Foundation alongside his furniture in wood and plywood.


Chinati Foundation

In 1979, with help from the Dia Art Foundation, Judd purchased a 340
acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square ...
(1.4 km2) tract of desert land near Marfa, which included the abandoned buildings of the former U.S. Army Fort D. A. Russell. The Chinati Foundation opened on the site in 1986 as a non-profit art foundation, dedicated to Judd and his contemporaries. The permanent collection consists of large-scale works by Judd, sculptor John Chamberlain, light-artist Dan Flavin and select others, including Ingólfor Arnarsson,
David Rabinowitch David Rabinowitch (born March 6, 1943) is a Canadian visual artist who exhibits internationally and is best known for his non-representational steel constructionsA Dictionary of Canadian Artists, volumes 1-8 by Colin S. MacDonald, and volume 9 ...
, Roni Horn, Ilya Kabakov, Richard Long, Carl Andre, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen, as well as Robert Irwin. Judd's work at Chinati includes 15 outdoor works in concrete and 100
aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...
pieces housed in two former artillery sheds that he adapted in great detail specifically for the installation of the work.


Academic work

Judd taught at several academic institutions in the United States: The Allen-Stevenson School (1960s), Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences (1962–64);
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
, Hanover (1966); and
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
, New Haven (1967). In 1976 he served as Baldwin Professor at
Oberlin College Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of highe ...
in
Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
. Beginning in 1983, he lectured at universities across the United States, Europe and Asia on both art and its relationship to architecture. During his lifetime, Judd published a large body of theoretical writings, in which he rigorously promoted the cause of Minimalist Art; these essays were consolidated in two volumes published in 1975 and 1987.


Writings

In his reviews as a critic, Judd discussed in detail the work of more than 500 artists showing in New York in the early and mid-1960s for publications including ''
ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countr ...
,'' ''Arts Magazine'', and ''Art International''. He provided a critical account of this significant era of art in America while addressing the social and political ramifications of art production. His essay "Specific Objects," first published in 1965, remains central to the analysis of the new art development in the early 1960s. Four major collections of his writings were published during his lifetime. ''Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975'' (Halifax, Nova Scotia/New York: Press of the College of Art and Design/New York University Press, 1975); ''Donald Judd: Complete Writings: 1975-1986'' (Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum, 1987); ''Donald Judd: Architektur'' (Münster: Westfälischer Kunstverein, 1989); ''Donald Judd: Écrits 1963-1990'' (Paris: Daniel Lelong, 1991).


Exhibitions

The artist’s work has been included in over 230 solo museum and gallery exhibitions worldwide,https://artmap.com/pace/exhibition/donald-judd-2011 excluding site-specific works. The Panoras Gallery organized Judd's first solo exhibition in 1957. In 1963, the
Green Gallery The Green Gallery was an art gallery that operated between 1960 and 1965 at 15 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City. The gallery's director was Richard Bellamy, and its financial backer was the art collector Robert Scull. Green Gallery ...
mounted his first solo exhibition of three-dimensional work. The
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
, New York, organized the first retrospective of his work in 1968. The Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, presented ''Don Judd'' in 1970, which also traveled to the Folkwang Museum in Essen, Germany, the Kunstverein Hannover, Germany, as well as
Whitechapel Art Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the ...
in London, UK. In 1975, the
National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the ...
, Ottawa, organized a large exhibition in 1975 and published a catalogue raisonné of Judd’s work. Judd participated in his first
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
in 1980, and in
Documenta ''documenta'' is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. The ''documenta'' was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultural ...
, Kassel, in 1982. In 1987, another large Judd-exhibition was presented at the Van Abbemuseum; this show also traveled to the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France,
Fundació Joan Miró The Fundació Joan Miró ( ; "Joan Miró Foundation, Centre of Studies of Contemporary Art") is a museum of modern art honoring Joan Miró located on the hill called Montjuïc in Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain). History The idea for the foundation ...
, Barcelona, Spain, and
Castello di Rivoli The Castle of Rivoli is a former Residence of the Royal House of Savoy in Rivoli (Metropolitan City of Turin, Italy). It is currently home to the Castello di Rivoli – Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, the museum of contemporary art of Turin. In 19 ...
in Turin, Italy. The Whitney Museum organized a second, traveling retrospective of his work in 1988, and another major European survey, ''Donald Judd,'' was mounted at
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
, London, in 2004, which traveled to major museums in Düsseldorf and Basel through 2005. Other important exhibitions include ''Donald Judd: Prints 1951–1993, Retrospektive der Druckgraphik'',
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag The Kunstmuseum Den Haag is an art museum in The Hague in the Netherlands, founded in 1866 as the Museum voor Moderne Kunst. Later, until 1998, it was known as Haags Gemeentemuseum, and until the end of September 2019 as Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. ...
, The Hague, 1993–1994; ''Donald Judd. Early Work 1955–1968'' at Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany, 2002; ''Donald Judd Colorist'',
Sprengel Museum Sprengel Museum is a museum of modern art in Hanover, Lower Saxony, holding one of the most significant collections of modern art in Germany. It is located in a building situated adjacent to the Masch Lake (german: Maschsee) approximately south ...
, Hanover, Germany, 2000. ''Judd,'' a large retrospective of Judd’s work, opened at the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...
, New York in March 2020.


Awards

*Fellowship,
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowships to professionals who have demonstrated exceptional ...
, 1968. *Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture from the
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 6 ...
, Maine, 1987. *Brandeis University Medal for Sculpture from
Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , p ...
, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1987. *
Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation is a non-profit arts foundation located on North Carolwood Drive in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles, California. Modern and contemporary artwork in the Frederick R. Weisman collection are displayed ...
Award, 1991 *Elected Foreign Member, Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, 1992 *Elected Member of the Littlefield Society, University of Texas, Austin, 1992 *Sikkens Award from Sikkens Foundation, Sassenheim, Netherlands, 1993. *Stankowski Prize from Stankowski Foundation, Stuttgart, Germany, 1993.


Museum collections

*
Albright Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park-Front Park System, Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily clos ...
, Buffalo, New York *
Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most import ...
, Sydney, Australia *
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
, Illinois *
The Broad The Broad () is a contemporary art museum on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles. The museum is named for philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, who financed the $140 million building that houses the Broad art collections. It offers free gener ...
, Los Angeles
Centre national des arts plastiques
Avignon, France *
Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
, Paris * The Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas *
Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...
s, Cleveland, Ohio
Colección De Arte Contemporaneo Fundacion La Caixa
Barcelona, Spain *
Cranbrook Art Museum The Cranbrook Educational Community is an education, research, and public museum complex in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This National Historic Landmark was founded in the early 20th century by newspaper mogul George Gough Booth. It consists of Cra ...
* Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, Arkansas * Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas * Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado * Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa * Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan * Dia:Beacon, New York
Fundación Helga de Alvear
Cáceres, Spain * Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection, Albany, NY; *
Migros Museum of Contemporary Art The Migros Museum of Contemporary Art (German: Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst) is a museum for contemporary art in Zürich, Switzerland. The museum was founded in 1996 . It is the successor to the Halle für Internationale neue Kunst, which ...
, Zurich * Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago * Hallen für Neue Kunst Schaffhausen, Switzerland *
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was desig ...
, Washington. * Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington * Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Judd Foundation
New York/Texas * Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland *
Kunstmuseum Bern The Museum of Fine Arts Bern (German: ''Kunstmuseum Bern''), established in 1879 in Bern, is the museum of fine arts of the de facto capital of Switzerland. Its holdings run from the Middle Ages to the present. It houses works by Paul Klee, Pabl ...
, Switzerland
Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
Switzerland * Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea
Lentos Kunstmuseum
Linz, Austria *
Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 19 ...
* Menil Collection, Houston, Texas *
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, New York * Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin * Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden * Mumok, Vienna, Austria
Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, St. Etienne
*
Musée de Grenoble The Museum of Grenoble (french: Musée de Grenoble) is a municipal museum of Fine Arts and antiquities in the city of Grenoble in the Isère region of France. Located on the left bank of the Isère River, place Lavalette, it is known both for it ...
, France * Musée départemental d'Art ancien et contemporain, Epinal, France
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona
Spain *
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía The ''Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía'' ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre"; MNCARS) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. It ...
, Madrid, Spain *
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The name of the museum is derived from the two most important collectors of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. It is located ...
, Netherlands
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
* Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany *
Museum Ludwig Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from Pop Art, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It holds many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lic ...
, Cologne, Germany * Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois * Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas *
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...
, New York
Museum of Modern Art, Shiga
Japan * Museum Wiesbaden, Germany * National Gallery of Art, Washington * National Gallery of Australia * National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan *
Pinakothek der Moderne The Pinakothek der Moderne (, ''Pinakothek of the Modern'') is a modern art museum, situated in central Munich's '' Kunstareal''. Locals sometimes refer to it as the ''Dritte'' ("third") ''Pinakothek'' after the Old and New. It is one of the world' ...
, Munich, Germany
Pinault Collection
Venice, Italy * Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels * Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
Sammlung FER Collection
Ulm, Germany *
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...
* Skulptur Projekte Münster, Germany *
Sprengel Museum Sprengel Museum is a museum of modern art in Hanover, Lower Saxony, holding one of the most significant collections of modern art in Germany. It is located in a building situated adjacent to the Masch Lake (german: Maschsee) approximately south ...
, Hannover, Germany * Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York *
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
, New York *
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...
*
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
and the
Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
, London * Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Iran * Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands *
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the ...
, Richmond, Virginia *
Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...
, Minneapolis * Western Washington University Public Sculpture Collection *
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
, New York


Judd Foundation

Originally conceived by Judd in 1977, and created in 1996, the Judd Foundation was formed in order to preserve the work and installations of Judd in Marfa, Texas and at 101 Spring Street in New York. Judd Foundation maintains and preserves his permanently installed living and working spaces, libraries, and archives across 22 buildings that comprise more than 100,000 square feet (approx. 9290 m2) and are considered fundamental components to the understanding of Judd's work as they remain the standard for his concept of permanent installation. The Foundation promotes a wider understanding of Judd’s artistic legacy by providing access to these spaces and resources and by developing scholarly and educational programs. Judd Foundation is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. In 2006, Judd Foundation established an endowment to support its operations through the sale of 36 works at auction. The foundation board requested one of its members, publisher Richard Schlagman, to get
Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémi ...
and
Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
to submit proposals for the sale of a group of works. Christie's offered a reported $21 million guarantee and agreed to display the consigned work for five weeks in New York on the 20th floor of the
Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publi ...
building. Concerns that the sale would have an adverse effect on the market proved unfounded and the exhibition itself won an AICA award for "Best Installation in an Alternative Space" for 2006. The $20 million in proceeds from the sale went into an endowment to enable the Foundation to fulfill its mission, by supporting the permanent installations that are located at 101 Spring Street in New York City and Marfa, Texas. Marianne Stockebrand, the director of the Chinati Foundation at the time, resigned from her post on the Judd Foundation’s board partly in protest of the auction. In 2013, the Judd Foundation — led by the artist's children — completed a $23 million renovation of 101 Spring Street, opening the building to the public for the first time. In 2018, Judd Foundation began a long-term restoration plan for its buildings in Marfa. In 2022, eight of the buildings stewarded by Judd Foundation in Marfa were added to the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
as part of the Central Marfa Historic District. The listing is the first time that Judd’s approach to architecture and preservation has been recognized as historically significant at the federal level. The publication program of Judd Foundation intends to develop texts for scholars, students, and those interested in the life and work of Judd. Judd Foundation published a reprint edition of ''Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975'' (2015); and co-published ''Donald Judd Writings'' (2016), a new collection of Judd’s writings and notes; ''Donald Judd Interviews'' (2019); and ''Donald Judd Spaces'' (2020). A comprehensive catalogue raisonné of paintings, objects, and wood-blocks is currently in the research phase by Judd Foundation.


Art market

The Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, represented the artist from 1965 to 1985. Judd then worked with Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, where he had a number of solo shows, and PaceWildenstein, which represented him through the end of his life. Judd's work has been represented – through the Judd Foundation – by
Gagosian Gallery Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in P ...
since September 2021 and
Thaddaeus Ropac Thaddaeus Ropac (born 16 January 1960) is an Austrian gallerist specializing in international contemporary art. He founded the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in 1981, and represents today more than 60 artists with his galleries in Salzburg (Austria), Pa ...
since 2018. Prices for Judd's works first peaked in 2002, when a group of six Plexiglas boxes sold for $4.2 million. One of Judd's large stacks, comprising 10 galvanised iron elements with nine-inch (228.6 mm) intervals, untitled (1977) fetched $9.8 million at
Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémi ...
in 2007. Judd's ten-unit untitled (1968) made of stainless steel and amber Plexiglas was sold for $4.9 million at
Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémi ...
New York in 2009. As of 2013, the artist's auction record is held by untitled (1963) a large-scale sculpture executed in galvanized iron, aluminum and wood, which sold for $14,165,000 at Christie's New York in 2013.


Personal life

Judd married dancer Julie Finch in 1964 and together they had two children, son Flavin Starbuck Judd (born 1968) and daughter Rainer Yingling Judd (born 1970). The couple divorced in 1978. From the late 1970s to the mid 1980s Judd was partners with artist, architect, and educator
Lauretta Vinciarelli Lauretta Vinciarelli (1943 – August 3, 2011) was an artist, architect, and professor of architecture at the collegiate level. Background and education Born in Arbe, Italy, Lauretta Vinciarelli was the daughter of Alberto and Annunciata Cenc ...
. In 1989, he met curator and museum director Marianne Stockebrand who today is the director emerita of Chinati Foundation. Judd had homes in Manhattan, Marfa, Texas, and Kussnacht am Rigi, Switzerland. He died in Manhattan of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on February 12, 1994.


References

More References *Judd, Donald. (1986) "Complete Writings, 1975–1986" Eindhoven, NL: Van Abbemuseum. *Kasper König (ed.): ''Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975'', Halifax: The Press of Nova Scotia College of Art & Design and New York University Press, 1975, 2005; New York: Judd Foundation, 2015. *Flavin Judd and Caitlin Murray (eds.): ''Donald Judd Writings.'' New York, Judd Foundation and David Zwirner Books, 2016, 2017. *Flavin Judd and Caitlin Murray (eds.): ''Donald Judd Interviews''. New York, Judd Foundation and David Zwirner Books, 2019. *Haskell, Barbara. (1988) "Donald Judd." New York: Whitney Museum of American Art / W.W.Norton & Co. *Agee, William C. (1995) "Donald Judd: Sculpture/Catalogue" New York: Pace Wildenstein Gallery. *Krauss, Rosalind E. & Robert Smithson. (1998) "Donald Judd: Early Fabricated Work." New York: Pace Wildenstein Gallery. *Serota, Nicholas et al. (2004) "Donald Judd" London and New York: Tate Modern and D.A.P. *Busch, Julia M.
''A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s''
(The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia
Associated University Presses
London, 1974) *Raskin, David
''Donald Judd''
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010); * Marianne Stockebrand (ed.): ''Chinati: The Vision of Donald Judd''. Yale University Press, New Haven (Connecticut) 2010. * Chilvers, Ian & Glaves-Smith, John eds., Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. pp. 350–351 * Stockebrand, Marianne, and Tamara H. Schenkenberg
''Donald Judd: The Multicolored Works''
Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, 2013. * Flückiger, Urs Peter (2021): ''Donald Judd: Architecture in Marfa, Texas''. Basel / Berlin / Boston: Birkhäuser Verlag, ISBN 978-3-0356-2161-7.


External links


Judd Foundation

Judd's biography
at the Handbook of Texas Online.
The Chinati Foundation/La Fundación Chinati


{{DEFAULTSORT:Judd, Donald 20th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century male artists American male sculptors 20th-century American architects American abstract artists American contemporary painters Minimalist artists 1928 births 1994 deaths College of William & Mary alumni Painters from Missouri Sculptors from Texas Art Students League of New York people Columbia University School of General Studies alumni Deaths from non-Hodgkin lymphoma Deaths from cancer in New York (state) 20th-century American printmakers People from Marfa, Texas Sculptors from New York (state) Sculptors from Missouri