Photograph by Ed Pollard, Hasselblad H4D50 - 2020.

Untitled (Study for Zinc Yellow)

Artist Franz Kline (American, 1910 - 1962)

CultureAmerican

Dateca. 1959

MediumOil on paper

DimensionsOverall: 12 x 9 1/4 in. (30.5 x 23.5 cm)

InscribedOn reverse: "AC-198" (inventory number from the Kline estate: Zogbaum Drawing 198).

Credit LineMuseum purchase

Object number85.43

On View

Not on view

DescriptionOil on paper study for the painting _Zinc Yellow_, 71.666. The artist develops the basic composition and color scheme in this study; the black triangular form is more complex in the painting, as is the brushwork and texture. This study is a flater, less complex work than the painting, which allows the viewer to see how the artist developed his ideas.

Label TextFranz Kline American (1910-1962) Untitled (Study for Zinc Yellow), ca. 1959 Oil on paper Museum purchase 85.43 This small oil-on-paper study by Franz Kline is a preliminary sketch for his monumental canvas Zinc Yellow, on view nearby. In the study Kline determined the painting's composition and its overall chromatic scheme, setting dramatic black and yellow hues against a more neutral field of white, gray, and blue. As in many of the Abstract Expressionists' most successful works, the extraordinary energy and sweep of Zinc Yellow give the illusion of having resulted from a spontaneous and unstudied burst of creativity. Yet the deliberateness of Kline's method is proven by the sketch, in which he carefully laid out the composition for his eight-by-seven-foot canvas in a format less than a foot square. ProvenanceMarlborough-Gerson Gallery, Inc.; Sotheby's sale, Contemporary Art, New York, May 2 - 3, 1985; Museum Purchase, 1985. Exhibition History"Franz Kline: Art and the Structure of Identity," Fundacio Antoni Tapies, Barcelona, Spain, March 18 - June 5, 1994; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, England, July 8 - September 11, 1994; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain, September 27 - November 21, 1994. Published ReferencesSotheby's, _Contemporary Art_, auction catalogue, May 2-3, 1985, New York, N.Y., no. 89. Joyce M. Szabo, "New Accession: Study for Zinc Yellow," _Chrysler Museum Bulletin_ 15 (July 1985): not paged. Jefferson C. Harrison, _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_ (Norfolk: The Chrysler Museum, 1991), 191, plate 145. Introduction by Stephen C. Foster, _Franz Kline: Art and the Structure of Identity_, exh. cat., Fundacio Antoni Tapies, Barcelona, Spain, 1994, 115, 207, no. 51. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, _Franz Kline, 1910-1962_, exh. cat., Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Italy, 2004, 393. Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 220, no. 135.