John Baldessari
b. National City, California, 1931–2020
Exhibiting Paintings
1966–1968
Acrylic on canvas
67 3/4 × 56 1/2 in. (172.1 × 143.5 cm)
Gift of The Glenstone Foundation, Mitchell P. Rales, Founder, in honor of Ned Rifkin’s tenure as Director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (2002–2005), 2005 (05.25)
© John Baldessari 1966-68. Courtesy Estate of John Baldessari © 2021. Photo: Lee Stalsworth
b. National City, California, 1931–2020
Exhibiting Paintings
1966–1968
Acrylic on canvas
67 3/4 × 56 1/2 in. (172.1 × 143.5 cm)
Gift of The Glenstone Foundation, Mitchell P. Rales, Founder, in honor of Ned Rifkin’s tenure as Director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (2002–2005), 2005 (05.25)
© John Baldessari 1966-68. Courtesy Estate of John Baldessari © 2021. Photo: Lee Stalsworth
In the late 1960s, John Baldessari, an early Los Angeles–based pioneer of Conceptual art, created his series of Word paintings, which reproduce advice that he copied from art history books and other contemporary art resources. Baldessari removed himself entirely from the artworks’ production by outsourcing the building of the stretcher bars, as well as the stretching and priming of the canvas; he then hired sign painters to hand-letter the texts in a font that amplifies the deadpan tone of the text. Stating that he wanted “to be less artful than Rauschenberg or Warhol,” Baldessari used painting to question the continued relevance of the medium.
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