Biography

Born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1930. Studied at the Tennessee Polytechnic

Institute, and the George Peabody College for Teachers before enlisting in
the army. He moved to New York City in 1953, and planned to be a jazz
saxophonist. He worked as a security guard in New York at the Museum of
Modern art where he developed his interest in painting. He was particularly
interested in the abstract expressionists. In 1955 he made what he considers
his first professional painting, Untiled (Orange Painting).

Using the square
The square? I began with that in the 1950s. The square has always just
been an equal-sided space that I could work with. Somehow its become so
natural to me that I just dont think of it any other way. It doesnt have the
feeling of a landscape or some kind of window or doorway that we usually
associate with rectangles. Its just a very neutral kind of space, and it seems
to feel right to me because of my approach to painting.


Classico #5
It has to do with the way we see things. Aesthetically we see things in a
certain way. I like odd numbers because you always have a center with an
odd number. With an odd number, you have an expansive feelinga feeling
of things moving out from the sides. With an even number, you have the wall
as the center, so its more of an enclosed feeling. It doesnt move outward as
much as the odd number doeswhich is also okay. But certain things have
different feelings, visually. If I have something that has ten elements, its not
so crucial, because I have enough that I dont really need a center. A triptych
is ideal because you have a center. A diptych is always a problem; they
never seem to work very well. Its just the way we see things.

In the late 1960s he created his Classico series of compositions consisting of
multi-panel paintings on a specific type of paper called Classico. For each
work in the series, Ryman attached a configuration of heavy, creamy white
sheets of the paper to a wall with masking tape, painted the sheets with a
shiny white acrylic paint, removed the tape when the sheets were dry,
mounted them on foamcore, and reattached them to the wall. The built-up
paint edge tracing the outline of masking tape and the ripped paper left
behind give witness to the process of creation.

Surface Veil
Surface Veil works from 1970 were named for the brand of fiberglass upon
which the smaller pieces in this group were painted. Some of the 12-foot
square paintings from the series were executed not on fiber-glass but on
cotton or linen. In each of these works the pigment appears to form a
membrane over the support due to the differing degrees of opacity and
translucence in the white paint juxtaposed with areas where less of it has
been applied, leaving the fabric exposed. These disruptions in the paintings
skin often mark the literal pauses between the artists working sessions.

Metal Brackets
He would design each set of brackets specifically for each piece and have
them constructed by a local metals fabricator.


Mark Rothko
Abstract Expressionist
Color field
Looks at the relationship between colors, shapes, & texture.
simplification

Rothko was very influential for me. When I first saw Rothko, Id never seen
a painting that way before. And I didnt know what he was doing. Id been
looking at pictures all the time, and here was something that had a totally
different feeling to it.

Jackson Pollock
it looks so easy, but it wasnt so easy. But it has to have that feeling, like it
just happened.

Paul Cezanne
Cezanne, for instancewhat fantastic things he did. He was always one of
my favorite paintershis structure and his paint handling. I mean, he really
understood paint. He understood how it works and what it could do. The way
he could put things together was phenomenal.

Henri Matisse:
"It's hard to describe a painting. You can describe to a certain extent, but it's
always more than that. Always. The more is the part that matters. In the Red
Studio, for instance, Matisse was using an image of the studio in order to
make a painting. The studio was the "what", but the "how" was how he did
the painting; that's what I'm talking about, and that's the important part...
It's how he did it, the flatness of it, the way he put it together..."

"Matisse was always an influence on me because of the way he put things
together, and again, how he did it. It was so direct, it seemed as if he knew
exactly what to do. Im sure he didnt exactly. But it had that feeling, which
was what I liked."

Jason Wu
Designer
Fall 2010 TSE cashmere collection inspired by Robert Ryman
The clothes were stunning beautifully textured with rich dimensions,
playful color blocking and inventive lines. It was easy to see Rymans
influence.



"[With regard to the contemporary art world] I don't think of myself as being
part of anything. I don't get involved with art. I mean, I'm involved with
painting, but I just look at it as solving problems and working on the visual
experience. I'm not involved with any kind of art movement..."


"I don't want to criticize, but I think a lot of writers have an idea... they want
to write about it, and work it in with an article on an artist's work. It can
work that way sometimes... Painting is a visual experience. People can write
about historical or philosophical points they want to get across using certain
examples of painting... it usually has very little to do with the painting itself.
I do something with the paint... I make a painting."