Grey Diamond

Grey Diamond

Ilya BolotowskyWW-1955-016637
1955·Oil on canvas, mounted on panel·129.5 × 129.5 cm (51 × 51 in.); At center: W.: 182.9 cm (72 in.)

<p>A devotee of Neo-Plasticism—the geometric, nonobjective style espoused by Piet Mondrian—Ilya Bolotowsky began to include the diamond shape in his art in 1947. Bolotowsky believed that this unusual means of presentation created a more spacious composition compared to a square canvas of the same size. <em>Grey Diamond</em> contains many principles of Neo-Plasticism: a lack of depth, the elimination of all representational forms, and carefully balanced color. In embracing the movement, Bolotowsky explained, “Nowadays, when paintings torture the retina, when music gradually destroys the eardrum, there must, all the more, be a need for an art that searches for new ways to achieve harmony and equilibrium.”</p>

Catalogue

Year
1955
Dimensions
129.5 × 129.5 cm (51 × 51 in.); At center: W.: 182.9 cm (72 in.)

Artist

Ilya Bolotowsky
Ilya Bolotowsky

Painting

Ilya Bolotowsky was a Russian-born abstract painter and sculptor who worked predominantly in geometric abstraction and neoplasticism from the 1930s onward. He developed a rigorous vocabulary of primary colors, straight lines, and rectangular forms influenced by Mondrian and the De Stijl movement. Bolotowsky lived and worked in New York from 1923, becoming a founding member of the American Abstract Artists group and a key figure in establishing geometric abstraction in postwar America. His paintings and wall-sized murals reduced composition to essential relationships between color and form, executed with technical precision across canvas, panel, and architectural commissions.

Saint Petersburg, Russia

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Record

Verified by WattsOS
Year
1955
Dimensions
129.5 × 129.5 cm (51 × 51 in.); At center: W.: 182.9 cm (72 in.)
Watts ID
WW-1955-016637

Source

Source
aic
Status
verified

Artist

Ilya Bolotowsky

Ilya Bolotowsky

Painting

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