Seven Aquatints

Accession Number
1999/1.104.2

Title
Seven Aquatints

Artist(s)
Robert Mangold

Artist Nationality
American (North American)

Object Creation Date
1973

Medium & Support
aquatint on BFK Rives wove paper

Dimensions
27 in x 22 1/4 in (68.58 cm x 56.52 cm);29 1/2 in x 25 3/16 in (74.93 cm x 63.98 cm)

Credit Line
Museum purchase made possible by a gift from Helmut Stern

Label copy
*Gallery Rotation Fall 2010
Robert Mangold
United States, born 1937
Seven Aquatints
1973
Aquatint printed in colors on BFK Rives wove paper
Museum purchase made possible by a gift from Helmut Stern, 1999/1.104.1–7
Seven Aquatints was Robert Mangold’s first set of intaglio prints. Like most of his print work, this series was based on his contemporaneous paintings exploring the serial relationship of geometric forms, in this case a circle and rectangles. Like much of his Minimalist painting, these prints exhibit a muted color palette with underlying gray tones and a slightly askew positioning of the outlined shapes. In Mangold’s work from the 1970s, line and color are treated as formal and conceptual equivalents, providing an interior frame and scale for the work. As Mangold states, “I think all my works are about things fitting together or not really fitting together, with the exterior structure either dictating the terms of the interior structure or setting up a framework the interior structure plays off.”

Subject matter
Seven Aquatints was Robert Mangold’s first set of intaglio prints. Like most of his print work, this series was based on his contemporaneous paintings exploring the serial relationship of geometric forms, in this case a circle and rectangles. In this work, the influence that Renaissance art had on Mangold is evidenced by the references to Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man and the rustic tones used in the series.

Physical Description
This print depicts a solid orange square, the outline of which circumscribes a green circle which in turn circuscribes a white square. The square is slightly offset to the left so it's right side corners do not touch the circle. 

Primary Object Classification
Print

Primary Object Type
abstract

Collection Area
Modern and Contemporary

Rights
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Keywords
Minimal
abstraction
form (composition concepts)
geometric shape
squares

& Author Notes

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