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Ronnie Landfield
work was included in the Aldrich Museum’s influential exhibition Lyrical Abstraction. These early exhibitions placed Landfield at the forefront of a renewed, more sensuous abstraction that moved beyond the restraint of Minimalism and hard-edge painting
Across more than six decades, Ronnie Landfield has sustained one of the
toward an art grounded in atmosphere and the suggestion of landscape.
most distinctive investigations of color and landscape in postwar American painting. Emerging in New York in the late 1960s, he moved beyond the hard-
Landscape has remained fundamental to Landfield’s work, though rarely through
edge geometry of his earliest work toward vast stained canvases charged with
direct representation. Rather than depicting a particular place, his paintings evoke
atmosphere, movement, and emotional intensity. These paintings helped define
the experience of the natural world through horizon, light, and distance. His interest
Lyrical Abstraction and established Landfield as one of its most original voices.
in Chinese landscape painting offered another way of thinking about pictorial space: one in which the eye could move through a composition rather than toward a single
Landfield’s education began as much in the museums and galleries of New York
fixed point. Broad fields of stained color may suggest mountains, weather, water, or
as it did in the classroom. As a student at the High School of Art and Design,
sky while remaining entirely abstract. The boundary between what is seen and what is
he regularly visited exhibitions across Manhattan, encountering firsthand the
felt remains intentionally open. Across the decades, Landfield has continually reshaped
generation that had transformed American painting after the Second World War.
this relationship without surrendering the essential character of his work. A horizontal
He studied drawing and painting at the Art Students League and later attended
division can imply a distant horizon. Elsewhere, transparent washes create depth, while
the Kansas City Art Institute and the San Francisco Art Institute. Remarkably,
sudden passages of saturated color give the surface physical weight. The natural world
he had already begun exhibiting his abstract paintings in New York while still in
becomes less a subject to be described than a source of sensation.
his teens. His early engagement with the work of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, and Ad Reinhardt gave him an intimate
Monumental Works brings this history decisively into the present. The paintings retain
understanding of Abstract Expressionism, even as his own generation began
the breadth and immersive force that distinguished Landfield’s early stained canvases
searching for ways beyond it.
while revealing a mature command of how color is structured across the surface. At full scale, they become environments of their own: expansive fields in which color carries
By the end of the 1960s, Landfield had developed a language unmistakably his
both physical presence and emotional resonance.
own. His work appeared in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 1967 Annual Exhibition when he was only twenty, followed by the museum’s 1969 Annual and the 1973 Whitney Biennial. In 1969 he presented his first one-person exhibition at David Whitney Gallery in New York, and the following year his
The Rise acrylic on canvas | 89 × 117 in. FG© 142306
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From the East to the West | acrylic on canvas | 91 × 277 in. | FG© 142301
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The Way Forward acrylic on canvas 91 × 193 in. FG© 142303
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“Like Mark Rothko, Landfield swathes color in bands and horizontal layers that transfer an extraordinary affective energy to the viewer.” — Ara Osterweil, The Brooklyn Rail
Love is the Power Source acrylic on canvas 90 × 128 in. FG© 142299
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“I sense a visual music that externalizes what I feel within me and in the air.” — Ronnie Landfield
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Ronnie Landfield in his studio, 94 Bowery, New York, November 1969, age 22. Photograph by Melissa Shook
ARCHIVE / HISTORY
The room became the measure. In the late 1960s, the scale of Landfield’s paintings expanded alongside
1966 4 Great Jones Street Studio
1966–1972
the spaces in which he made them. At Great Jones Street and later 94 Bowery, he moved away from hard-edge abstraction toward stained, landscape-inflected paintings made on unstretched canvas across the floor. His work entered the Whitney Annual in 1967, and in 1969 he presented his first solo exhibition at David Whitney Gallery. Architect Philip Johnson became one of Landfield’s earliest and most consequential supporters. He acquired work from the young painter and later owned Diamond Lake (1969), which ultimately entered the collection of the Museum of Modern Art as Johnson’s gift. In these years, studio, canvas and architecture became inseparable: the room
1969 Landfield and Larry Poons
itself became part of how Landfield understood scale.
“Philip Johnson became my first important patron.” — Ronnie Landfield 1972 Diamond Lake at MoMA
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“It’s not only about my feelings. It’s also about how someone looking at the painting feels through color, form, space, surface, scale, and size.” — Ronnie Landfield, conversation with Wei Wei, LINEA, February 2026
Across the Wall acrylic on canvas 91 × 159 in. FG© 142305
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Watchtower of Time acrylic on canvas 91 × 190 in. FG© 142304
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IN RONNIE’S STUDIO
Working horizontally. 15
“Creating my paintings has been the raison d’être for most of my adult life. I believe that is why I am here… I’ve learned to trust my aesthetic instincts and to heed my own judgments.” — Ronnie Landfield, “The New Museum of Modern Art: An Artist’s View,” LINEA, Winter 2005
Landfield’s working method gives fluid color a degree of independence. With unstretched canvas laid horizontally, he can move around the entire surface, directing stains and washes from multiple positions rather than approaching the painting from a single edge. Paint is poured, brushed, absorbed and redirected; the canvas itself can be lifted or angled to influence its movement. Control remains essential, but so does the willingness to allow gravity and material to participate in the image.
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Edge of the Universe | acrylic on canvas | 91 × 277 in. | FG© 142300 (cover image)
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“To stand in front of a Landfield painting is to be transported into a world where color feeds upon color…” — Louis A. Zona, The Butler Institute of American Art
ARCHITECTURE / SCALE
Paintings in space. Landfield’s monumental canvases do more than occupy architecture; they alter its measure. Their breadth establishes a horizon within the room, while passages of stain and saturated color unfold differently with each change of distance. Seen close, the eye registers poured pigment, absorption, and touch. Seen across a room, those incidents cohere into atmosphere and expanse. These visualizations restore a sense of proportion that an isolated artwork reproduction cannot convey. Within architecture, Landfield’s canvases become active elements of the room: color extends into the surrounding space, horizontal structures establish visual horizons, and the viewer’s movement becomes part of the experience of the painting.
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RESIDENTIAL SCALE
At Home Landfield’s large vertical canvases condense the breadth of his monumental works without diminishing their presence. Rising more than seven feet, each painting holds color in stacked, atmospheric passages that meet the body at an architectural scale. Their narrower format creates intimacy, while the experience remains immersive.
Freedom on High acrylic on canvas 91 × 63 in. FG© 140543 (right)
Contemplation
Second Nature
acrylic on canvas
acrylic on canvas
91 × 71 in.
91 × 81 in.
FG© 140547 (left)
FG© 137728 (middle)
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Across the Universe | acrylic on canvas | 91 × 283 in. | FG© 142302
List of Exhibitions 2026 2026 2025 2025 2025 2024 2024 2024 2023 2023 2023 2022 2022 2021 2021 2020 2019 2019 2018 2017 2017 2016 2016 2015 2013 2013 2013 2012 2011 2011 2010 2009 2009 2007 2007 2006 2005 2004
Monumental Works, Findlay Galleries, New York, NY Recent Works, Findlay Galleries, Palm Beach, FL Recent Works, Findlay Galleries, Palm Beach, FL Group Exhibition, Luminous Horizons, Findlay Galleries, Palm Beach, FL Group Exhibition, Something Blue, Findlay Galleries, Palm Beach, FL Recent Works, Findlay Galleries, New York, NY Group Exhibition, Four Fold Hurricane, Sam & Adele Golden Gallery, New Berlin, NY; with Ronald Davis Group Exhibition, Fields of Color, Findlay Galleries, Palm Beach, FL; with Mary Sipp Green Recent Works, Findlay Galleries, Palm Beach, FL Group Exhibition, Kikuo Saito and Friends: New York City Downtown and Beyond, 1970s and 1980s, KinoSaito, Verplanck, NY Group Exhibition, Object Matter, Caldwell Gallery Hudson, Hudson, NY Recent Works, Findlay Galleries, New York, NY Recent Works, Findlay Galleries, Palm Beach, FL American Color Field Abstractionist, Findlay Galleries, Palm Beach, FL Group Exhibition, Lyrical Abstraction, Findlay Galleries, New York, NY Concurrence, Findlay Galleries, New York, NY Ronnie Landfield: 50th Anniversary Exhibition, Findlay Galleries, New York, NY Recent Paintings, Findlay Galleries, Palm Beach, FL Dual-gallery Recent Works, Findlay Galleries, New York, NY and Palm Beach, FL Recent Paintings, Findlay Galleries, New York, NY Group Exhibition, Park Place Gallery: Founders and Friends, Then and Now, David Richard Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Recent Paintings, Findlay Galleries, Palm Beach, FL Ronnie Landfield: Five Decades, Stux + Haller Gallery, New York, NY Coming Full Circle, chashama, 1133 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY After the Rain: Recent Paintings, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM Group Exhibition, Come Together: Surviving Sandy, Year One, Industry City, Brooklyn, NY Group Exhibition, Going Into the Dark, The Painting Center, New York, NY Where It All Began: Recent Paintings, Kenny Gallery, High School of Art and Design, New York, NY Ronnie Landfield: New Paintings, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Beyond Color Field, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM Group Exhibition, American Painterly Abstraction: Seven Painters, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM 40th Anniversary Exhibition, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Forty Years of Color Abstraction, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM Retrospective, Ronnie Landfield: Paintings from Five Decades, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH Toward Monochrome, Heidi Cho Gallery, New York, NY Public installation, Three Paintings, 750 Seventh Avenue at 49th Street, New York, NY Group Exhibition, Color Coded, Heidi Cho Gallery, New York, NY Public installation, Six Paintings, 450 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY; six-month installation
2004 2004 2003 2001 2000 1999 1998 1996 1996 1995 1994 1994 1993 1993 1991– 1992 1991 1991 1991 1990 1989 1989 1988 1988 1988 1988 1987 1987 1986 1985 1985 1985 1985 1984 1984 1984 1984 1983 1983 1982 1982 1982 1981 1981 1981 1980 1980 1979 1979 1979 1979
Karen Lynne Gallery, Boca Raton, FL Group Exhibition, S.M.S.: The Letter Edged in Black Press, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL; Group Exhibition, The Big Canvas: Paintings from the Permanent Collection, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE Waddington and Tribby Galleries, Boca Raton, FL Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York, NY Claudia Carr Gallery, New York, NY Jaquelin Loyd Gallery, Ranchos de Taos, NM Jaffe/Baker Gallery, Boca Raton, FL Continental Gallery, Sapporo, Japan Group Exhibition, Seven Painters, Nicholas/Alexander Gallery, New York, NY Nicholas/Alexander Gallery, New York, NY Stephen Rosenberg Gallery, New York, NY Group Exhibition, Reading Prints, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Group Exhibition, Lyrical Abstraction: Color and Mood, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE Traveling Group Exhibition, The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, organized by the American Federation of Arts Jaffe/Baker Gallery, Boca Raton, FL Robert Kidd Gallery, Birmingham, MI Richard Nadeau Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Stephen Haller Fine Art, New York, NY Stephen Haller Fine Art, New York, NY Linda Farris Gallery, Seattle, WA Stephen Haller Fine Art, New York, NY Hokin/Kaufman Gallery, Chicago, IL Grace Hokin Gallery, Miami, FL Retrospective, Brunnier Museum, Iowa State University, Ames, IA; ten-year retrospective Stephen Haller Fine Art, New York, NY Linda Farris Gallery, Seattle, WA B.R. Kornblatt Gallery, Washington, DC Grace Hokin Gallery, Miami, FL Hokin/Kaufman Gallery, Chicago, IL Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY; works on paper Group Exhibition, The Bocour Collection, Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY Linda Farris Gallery, Seattle, WA B.R. Kornblatt Gallery, Washington, DC Group Exhibition, Dialogues in Art, Palazzo Ducale di Gubbio, Gubbio, Italy Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY Medici-Berenson Gallery, Miami, FL Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY B.R. Kornblatt Gallery, Washington, DC Nexus Gallery, Atlanta, GA Medici-Berenson Gallery, Miami, FL Linda Farris Gallery, Seattle, WA Public installation, Bank of America World Headquarters, San Francisco, CA Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY B.R. Kornblatt Gallery, Washington, DC Sarah Rentschler Gallery, New York, NY Linda Farris Gallery, Seattle, WA Medici-Berenson Gallery, Miami, FL Group Exhibition, The Dootson Collection, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
1978 1978 1978 1978 1978 1976 1976 1976 1975– 1984 1975 1974 1974 1974 1974 1973 1973 1973 1973 1972 1971 1971 1971 1971 1970 1970 1970 1970 1970 1970 1969 1969 1967 1967
Traveling Group Exhibition, Two Decades: American Art from the Collection of the Smith College Museum of Art; Smith College Museum of Art, then Montclair Art Museum Sarah Rentschler Gallery, New York, NY B.R. Kornblatt Gallery, Baltimore, MD Linda Farris Gallery, Seattle, WA Group Exhibition, The Big Picture Show: Large Scale Paintings of the Past Two Decades, Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, NY B.R. Kornblatt Gallery, Baltimore, MD Corcoran and Greenberg Gallery, Coral Gables, FL Group Exhibition, Project Rebuild: An Exhibition to Aid Earthquake-Damaged Udine, Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, NY Public installation, Four paintings from the Philip Johnson collection installed on the east wall of the Four Seasons Restaurant, Seagram Building, New York, NY André Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY André Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY Corcoran and Greenberg Gallery, Coral Gables, FL Janie C. Lee Gallery, Houston, TX Group Exhibition, Contemporary American Paintings from the Lewis Collection, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE André Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY Corcoran and Corcoran Gallery, Coral Gables, FL Group Exhibition, Whitney Biennial 1973: Contemporary American Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY Group Exhibition, Albert Pilavin Collection of 20th Century Art, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI Group Exhibition, Recent Acquisitions X, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY David Whitney Gallery, New York, NY Corcoran and Corcoran Gallery, Coral Gables, FL Group Exhibition, Toward Color and Field, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX Group Exhibition, Lyrical Abstraction, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY Joseph Helman Gallery, St. Louis, MO New Gallery, Cleveland, OH Jack Glenn Gallery, Corona del Mar, CA Group Exhibition, Lyrical Abstraction, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art,Ridgefield, CT Group Exhibition, Highlights of the 1969–70 Art Season, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT Group Exhibition, Two Generations of Color Painting, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA David Whitney Gallery, New York, NY Group Exhibition, 1969 Annual Exhibition: Contemporary American Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY Group Exhibition, Four Young Painters, Bianchini Gallery, New York, NY; with Dan Christensen, Kenneth Showell and Peter Gourfain Group Exhibition, 1967 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
F I N D L AY GA L L E R I E S Findlay Galleries is pleased to present Ronnie Landfield: Monumental Works, continuing the gallery’s sustained presentation of the artist’s work in New York and Palm Beach. For information regarding the works in this catalogue, acquisitions, or consignments, please contact either gallery. N E W
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32 East 57th Street, 2nd Floor New York, NY 10022 Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday | 10 am – 6 pm Frederick S. Clark Vice President & New York Gallery Director fred@findlayart.com (212) 421-5390 PA L M
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165 Worth Avenue Palm Beach, FL 33480 Gallery Hours: Monday – Saturday | 10 am – 6 pm Juan M. Pretel Vice President & Palm Beach Gallery Director juan@findlayart.com (561) 655-2090 W W W. F I N D L AY G A L L E R I E S . C O M p. 9 — Ronnie Landfield in his studio, 94 Bowery, New York, November 1969. Photograph by Melissa Shook. p. 10 — Ronnie Landfield and Larry Poons, 1969. Photograph by J. Griefen. p. 10 — Diamond Lake at The Museum of Modern Art, 1972. Photograph by James Mathews. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. p. 10 — Ronnie Landfield with the Series paintings, 4 Great Jones Street, New York, late summer 1966. Photograph by Tom Gormley.
Since 1870