Barnett Newman

Series: USA: Artists Series

Duration: 0:30:00

Genre: Art | Educational | Interview

Year Published: 1966

Creator: National Educational Television: Distributor

Format: 16mm

Color: B&W

Sound: sound

Description: Barnett Newman is one of the founders of contemporary American painting. Current with the occasion of a rare exhibition of his work (the Fourteen Stations of the Cross, 1958-1966) at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, this film traces the growth of this major series. Each of the fourteen paintings of “The Stations of the Cross” is 6 ½ feet high and 5 feet wide, and each consists of one or more vertical bands of black or white. “They are not in a conventional sense ‘church’ art. But they do concern themselves with the Passion as I feel and understand it; and what is even more significant for me, they can exist without a church” writes Barnett Newman in a recent issue of “Art News.” “This is the Passion and this is what I have tried to evoke in these paintings. I felt compelled … to use only raw canvas and to discard al color palettes … There would be no beguiling esthetics to scrutinize. Each painting had to be seen – the visual impact had to be total, immediate, at once.” The exhibition was the subject of a controversy in the art world. This program, filmed in Barnett Newman’s home, the Guggenheim exhibition, his studio, the docks of the Lower East Side, provides an opportunity to examine Newman’s work, and to hear his views on the contemporary painter and paintings in relation to where he himself stands., Presents Barnett Newman and his attempt to paint as if it had never been done before. Discusses why he has moved toward large paintings, his objective of creating a pure art in which fields of white are separated by vertical bands of black in order to express the idea of spatial resonance, and, in particular, how he has come to create these paintings and what their meaning is for him. Shows Newman working in his studio and greeting visitors at the opening in the Guggenheim Museum, New York, of an exhibition of the fourteen paintings of "The Stations of the Cross."

Complete Record: , Presents Barnett Newman and his attempt to paint as if it had never been done before. Discusses why he has moved toward large paintings, his objective of creating a pure art in which fields of white are separated by vertical bands of black in order to express the idea of spatial resonance, and, in particular, how he has come to create these paintings and what their meaning is for him. Shows Newman working in his studio and greeting visitors at the opening in the Guggenheim Museum, New York, of an exhibition of the fourteen paintings of "The Stations of the Cross."NOTE: Two (or more) records have been merged together to create this data.