Artist Profile
Artist Profile
Robert Ryman (b. 1930) is a contemporary American painter whose distinctive, immediately recognizable works have been internationally exhibited for more than four decades. Born in Nashville, Ryman studied at Tennessee Polytechnic Institute and Peabody Teachers College before serving two years in the U.S. Army. In 1952, he moved to New York to pursue a career as a jazz saxophone player.Almost immediately, and without formal training, he began to experiment with painting. That interest accelerated after he landed a job as a guard at the Museum of Modern Art, where he spent long days in the galleries absorbing and examining paintings by artists like Matisse, Cezanne, Picasso, and later, Rothko. He has said that he decided to pursue painting instead of music because he knew he couldn't do both, and painting interested him more.
Ryman had his first New York gallery show in 1967 and his first European show, in Munich, in 1968. His work was the subject of major shows in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and the first decade of this century. The largest long-term displays of his work are at Hallen für Neue Kunst in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, and Dia:Beacon in New York. Robert Ryman: Variations and Improvisations, his first solo museum exhibition in Washington, D.C., is distinctive in its focus on small-scale works, many of which have not been publicly exhibited for many years.
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