Donald Judd is considered one of the most significant artists of the 20th Century. His radical ideas and his works continue to influence not only the art realm but also architecture and design. Born in Excelsior Spring, Missouri, Judd served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War from 1946 to 1947. Returning home, Judd studied art history and philosophy at Columbia University and concurrently began painting classes at the Art Students League, Eventually, he transitioned to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1948.
From 1959 to 1965 Judd worked primarily as an art critic and painter. From the early 1960s he began experimenting works in three-dimensions, confronting the notion of artistic originality, the significance of artistic expression, empirical knowledge, and the concept of engaged citizenship. Judd’s experimentation led him to utilize materials such as steel, concrete, and plywood, employing industrial processes to craft large-scale minimalist sculptures, often box-shaped and organized with repetitive patterns and simple geometric forms. In 1957, the artist held his first solo show at the Panoramas Gallery in New York. In 1963, he showcased his second solo exhibition at the Green Gallery. Finally, in 1966, he began a series of solo exhibitions at the Leo Castelli Gallery.
Judd started teaching during that period. In 1962-64 he taught at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, in 1966 he was Visiting artist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and finally the following year he was professor of sculpture at Yale University, New Haven.
Judd’s vision for the permanent installation of artwork took root in New York City, where in 1968 he acquired a five-story cast-iron building at 101 Spring Street. A decade later, the artist decided to move to Marfa, Texas, where he continued to permanently install his work and the work of others until his death in 1994. These spaces, including studios, living quarters and ranches reflected the diversity of work the artist had pursued over a lifetime. This led him to open in 1977 the eponymous Foundation, dedicated to preserve his art, spaces, libraries and archives.
For at least four decades, Judd exhibited his work in the United States, Europe and Asia. Major exhibitions were organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1968, 1988); the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1975); the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (1970), then exhibited in Düsseldorf, Paris, Barcelona and Turin; the Tate Modern, London (2004); and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2020). In 1971 he participated in the Guggenheim International Award exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York along with other conceptual and minimalist artists. In 1980 he was at the Venice Biennale and in 1982 at Documenta, Kassel. Over the years, Judd published numerous theoretical texts to advance the cause of Minimalism.
As previously mentioned, Donald Judd’s artistic journey commenced with traditional mediums, namely drawings and paintings depicting landscapes and figures. His early works were characterized by blocks of color and shapes derived from observed scenes and objects. Transitioning from paintings marked by lines on color fields, Judd gradually embraced abstract forms, eventually integrating shapes onto fields of color. In the early 1960s, Judd embarked on a transformative path, introducing objects into his paintings to enhance their “objectivity”, thereby transcending mere color fields. This evolution naturally led to the emergence of reliefs, as Judd explored forms that extended beyond the two-dimensional plane, inching closer towards three-dimensionality. In 1962, Judd exhibited his first freestanding object, a sculpture in wood, masonite and asphalt, that was immediately followed by a second self-supporting wood and metal object.
In 1963, Donald Judd created ten large works, with eight showcased in his solo exhibition at the Green Gallery in New York. Among them, three were mounted on the gallery walls, while five occupied the gallery floor. Judd articulated the distinct qualities of these pieces in his essay Specific Objects, written in 1965. These artworks defied clear classification as either purely sculptural or pictorial, existing in a realm beyond traditional artistic categories. Judd’s specific objects emerged from a thoughtful exploration and synthesis of various artistic influences includingJackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, Lee Bontecou, John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin, and Claes Oldenburg.