DONALD JUDD
1928-1994, United StatesDonald Judd (1928–1994) produced visual and written work that shifted the course of modern art. Starting out as a painter in the 1950s, he began making three-dimensional works in the early 1960s, aiming to make objects that were free of the illusionism associated with painting. The aluminium, plexiglass, and plywood objects utilized the neutrality of their industrial mediums, and Judd’s production methods emphasized schematic variation and spatial definition through form. His interdisciplinary focus included architecture as well as furniture, and he was a prolific critic and essayist whose writing clarified his own artistic intentions as well as insightfully reflected on the work of his contemporaries.
Donald Judd was born in 1928 in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, and died in 1994 in New York. Collections include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate, London; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; and Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. Exhibitions include the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1968 and 1988); Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands (1970, traveled to Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; Kunstverein Hannover, Germany; and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1975); and Tate Modern, London (2004, traveled to Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany; and Kunstmuseum Basel). Judd established Judd Foundation in 1977 to preserve his art, spaces, libraries, and archives in New York and in Marfa, Texas. He founded the Chinati Foundation/La Fundación Chinati in 1986 for the permanent installation of his and his contemporaries’ large-scale works. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, presented a major retrospective of Judd’s work from March 1, 2020, to January 9, 2021.
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