Robert Mangold

Robert Mangold (North Tonawanda, NY, b. 1937) is an American artist known for his contribution of geometry and asymmetry to art. Influenced by Classical architecture and the art of the Renaissance, he introduced a subjective vision into pure forms such as squares, circles, and polygons, questioning the sense of geometry in the mind of the viewer. A graduate of the Yale School of Art (BFA 1961, MFA 1963), Mangold had his first solo exhibition at the Fischbach Gallery in 1965 titled Walls and Areas. The exhibition consisted of a group of large paintings on Masonite and plywood related to pieces of architecture in terms of solid form and atmosphere. In 1966, the Jewish Museum included Mangold’s work in the epoch-defining exhibition Primary Structures. His second solo exhibition in 1967 featured his experiments with sections of circles on board and Masonite. In subsequent years, Mangold employed acrylic instead of oil paint and moved to shaped canvases. In recent years, he has continued challenging the limits of the two-dimensional medium of painting and the perceptual aspects of art with the use of bright primary colors combined with muted tones.