Robert Mangold

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Robert Mangold's 'X Within X Orange'

Robert Mangold (born October 12, 1937 in North Tonawanda, New York) is an American minimalist artist.

“Robert Mangold’s paintings,” wrote Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times in 1997, “are more complicated to describe than they seem, which is partly what’s good about them: the way they invite intense scrutiny, which, in the nature of good art, is its own reward.” His works are comprised often of simple elements which are put together through complex means. Mangold's work challenges the typical connotations of what a painting is or could be, and his works often appear as objects rather than images. Elements refer often to architectural elements or have the feeling of an architect's hands.

In 1965 the Jewish Museum in New York held the first major exhibition of what was called Minimal art and included Robert Mangold. In 1967 he won a National Endowment for the Arts grant and in 1969 a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1971 he had his first solo museum exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum. He has been featured in the Whitney Biennial four times, in 1979, 1983, 1985, and 2004.

Mangold’s paintings, quiet and restrained on the surface, are much admired by artists. In a 1994 review in Art in America, Robert Kushner wrote that “underneath the composure of their execution, there is an almost romantic vividness of experience. The contrast of this veiled undercurrent and the Apollonian restraint of the presentation make these new paintings both powerful and poignant.”

Mangold made his first prints in 1972 at Crown Point Press and has made prints throughout his career, working with Pace Editions and Brooke Alexander Editions. His work is in many museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Tate Collection in London. He is represented by PaceWildenstein in New York and lives in Washingtonville, New York with his wife Sylvia Plimack Mangold also an artist. They are the parents of film director and screenwriter James Mangold.