Ad Reinhardt
Biography

Ad Reinhardt was a prominent American painter best known for his shaping of the Conceptual and Minimalist movements. Reinhardt’s paintings contain incredibly subtle tonal and chromatic shifts, lending a visual and conceptual complexity that can only be appreciated in person. His most famous works are his seminal Black Paintings (1954–1967), which he considered an end-game evolution of Modernism and dubbed “the last paintings one can make.”

While at Columbia College he became friends with Robert Lax and Thomas Merton. These three found great influence in Catholic Trappist teachings, which follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, they each expressed this conceptual simplicity across their own individual careers and works.

Like many New York artists in the 1930s, Reinhardt served as a painter for the Works Progress Administration, allowing him to experience a network of other artists. He joined and exhibited with the American Abstract Artists’ Association, which led to early showings with the Betty Parsons Gallery.

Reinhardt joined the staff of PM in 1942 and he worked full-time at this daily newspaper until 1947, with time out while drafted for active duty in the U.S. Navy. During this time period he produced many cartoons and illustrations.

In 1953, Ad Reinhardt married Rita Ziprkowski. The couple had a daughter named Anna in 1954.

Reinhardt died from a heart attack in his studio on August 30, 1967 in New York, NY. His estate has been represented by David Zwirner gallery in New York since his death, and his works are found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Tate Gallery in London, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among others.

Born: 1913
Died: 1967
Education: Columbia University

Exhibitions

Select Exhibitions

2022
Ad Reinhardt: Color Out of Darkness. Curated by James Turrell
PACE NEW YORK (540 WEST 25TH STREET)

2021
Ad Reinhardt: El arte es el arte y todo lo demás es todo lo demás, FUNDACION JUAN MARCH, MADRID MADRID | SPAIN

2017
Ad Reinhardt: Blue Paintings, DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK (20TH STREET) NEW YORK | USA

2015
Ad Reinhardt: Art vs. History, MALMÖ KONSTHALL MALMÖ | SWEDEN

2013
Ad Reinhardt, DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK (20TH STREET)

2010
Ad Reinhardt / Louise Nevelson: A Dialogue, ScheiblerMitte, Berlin

2003–2004
Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York

1999
Marlborough Gallery, New York

1991
The Museum of Modern Art, New York

1985
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany

1984
The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1981
The Pace Gallery, New York

1980
The Solomon R. Guggenheim, Museum, New York

1977
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Germany

1972
Traveling exhibition, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Kunsthaus Zürich; Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Paris; and Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, Vienna.

1970
Marlborough Gallery, New York

1966
Jewish Museum, New York

1946–1965
Exhibited with Betty Parsons Gallery, New York