Light - Neutral Area
1966
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
oil and flat lacquer on hardboard
Dimensions
overall: 76.2 x 87.6 cm (30 x 34 1/2 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CMC
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, Patrons' Permanent Fund and Gift of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel
Accession Number
1991.241.85
Art Historical Context
Robert Mangold’s *Light - Neutral Area* (1966) exemplifies the quiet rigor of Minimalism, a movement that emerged in the 1960s as artists sought to strip painting to its essential elements. Working in New York at a time when Abstract Expressionism’s gestural energy still dominated, Mangold turned instead to geometric restraint and industrial materials. The painting’s modest scale and matte surface invite viewers to slow down and notice subtle shifts in tone and edge rather than dramatic brushwork. Executed in oil and flat lacquer on hardboard, the work achieves an unusually even, non-reflecti...
About the Artist
Robert Mangold
Robert Mangold, born on October 12, 1937, in North Tonawanda, New York, grew up in a working-class family near Buffalo, where his father toiled in an organ factory and his mother worked as a department store buyer. From an early age, he showed artistic talent, borrowing art books from the library and pursuing illustration in high school. Mangold trained at the Cleveland Institute of Art from 1956 ...