Acrylic on cotton canvas, circa 1969-70. 1220x914 mm; 48x36 inches. Signed in pencil on the stretcher bar, upper right verso.
Provenance: the artist, New York; Gail J. Wright Sirmans, New York; private collection, New York.
This painting is a striking and unusual example of the artist's geometric abstraction in a non-shaped canvas. This work displays a transitional exploration of composition, form and color, apart from his shaped hexagon and cube canvases. Inspired by Hans Hofmann and Josef Albers, Detroit-born Loving earned an MFA from the University of Michigan in 1965. Loving began hard edge painting in 1967. Loving launched his New York career after his first solo exhibition with Gertrude Kasle Gallery in Detroit in 1969. Gertrude Kasle provided Loving with letters of introduction to Harold Hart of Martha Jackson Gallery and Steven Wilde and Bert Walker, curators at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1969, Loving enjoyed extraordinary success with a critically acclaimed solo exhibition at the Whitney. Loving was the first of a group of African-American artists whose work was shown at the Whitney during the 1970s, including Frank Bowling, Frederick Eversley, Melvin Edwards and Alma Thomas--all, except Edwards, were abstract painters. The Whitney exhibition led to the museum purchase of the painting Rational Irrationalism, private sales of all the other works, and his signing with William Zierler Gallery.
