38 Facts About Donald Judd

Donald Clarence Judd was an American artist associated with minimalism.

Donald Judd is generally considered the leading international exponent of "minimalism," and its most important theoretician through such writings as "Specific Objects".

Donald Judd used the building as his New York residence and studio, and during the next 25 years, renovated it floor by floor, occasionally installing works he purchased or commissioned from other artists.

In 1965, Donald Judd created his first stack, an arrangement of identical iron units stretching from floor to ceiling.

The works that Donald Judd had fabricated inhabited a space not then comfortably classifiable as either painting or sculpture and in fact he refused to call them sculpture, pointing out that they were not sculpted but made by small fabricators using industrial processes.

Donald Judd displayed two pieces in the seminal 1966 exhibit, "Primary Structures" at the Jewish Museum in New York where, during a panel discussion of the work, he challenged Mark di Suvero's assertion that real artists make their own art.

Donald Judd replied that methods should not matter as long as the results create art; a groundbreaking concept in the accepted creation process.

In 1968, Donald Judd bought a five-story building in New York that allowed him to start placing his work in a more permanent manner than was possible in gallery or museum shows.

Donald Judd was affected by the clean, empty desert and this strong attachment to the land would remain with him for the rest of his life.

Donald Judd started making room sized installations that made the spaces themselves his playground and the viewing of his art a visceral, physical experience.

Donald Judd believed that art should not represent anything, that it should unequivocally stand on its own and simply exist.

Donald Judd's aesthetic followed his own strict rules against illusion and falsity, producing work that was clear, strong and definite.

Donald Judd started using unpainted plywood in the early 1970s, a material the artist embraced for its durable structural qualities, which enabled him to expand the size of his works while avoiding the problem of bending or buckling.

In 1972 Donald Judd appoints Peter Ballantine, a former Whitney Independent Study Program student, as his primary fabricator of hiss plywood works.

Donald Judd later began using Cor-ten steel in the 1980s for a small number of large-scale outdoor pieces, and by 1989 would create single and multi-part works with the material.

The artist began working with enamel on aluminum in 1984, when he commissioned Lehni AG in Switzerland to construct works by bending and riveting thin sheets of the material, a process Donald Judd previously used to create furniture.

Donald Judd would continue to produce pieces using these techniques through the early 1990s.

In 1990, Donald Judd opened an atelier in an old liquor factory from 1920 at Mulheimer Hafen in Cologne, Germany.

Donald Judd began to make figurative prints in 1951 while at the Art Students League, transitioning to abstract images by the mid-1950s.

In 1961 Donald Judd conceived and designed a parallelogram woodcut series.

Between the years 1967 and 1992, Donald Judd made eight different sets of works in editions ranging from three to two hundred in a range of materials: stainless steel, galvanized iron, cold-rolled steel, anodized aluminum, acrylic sheet, and wood.

Donald Judd was careful to distinguish his design practice from his artwork, writing in 1993:.

The first furniture, a bed and a sink, Donald Judd designed in 1970 for Spring Street.

Donald Judd was initially prompted to design furniture by his own dissatisfaction with what was commercially available in Marfa.

Donald Judd's activity in architecture and furniture design increased beginning around 1978, at which time he was involved professionally and romantically with Lauretta Vinciarelli, an Italian-born architect and artist.

In 1984, Donald Judd commissioned Lehni AG, the fabricator of his multi-colored works in Dubendorf, Switzerland to produce his furniture designs in sheet metal, in finishes of monochrome colored powdercoat based on the RAL colour standard, clear anodized aluminium, or solid copper.

In 1979, with help from the Dia Art Foundation, Judd purchased a 340 acres tract of desert land near Marfa, which included the abandoned buildings of the former US Army Fort D A Russell.

Donald Judd taught at several academic institutions in the United States: The Allen-Stevenson School, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences ; Dartmouth College, Hanover ; and Yale University, New Haven.

Donald Judd provided a critical account of this significant era of art in America while addressing the social and political ramifications of art production.

Donald Judd participated in his first Venice Biennale in 1980, and in Documenta, Kassel, in 1982.

In 1987, another large Donald Judd-exhibition was presented at the Van Abbemuseum; this show traveled to the Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, Germany, Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France, Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona, Spain, and Castello di Rivoli in Turin, Italy.

The Whitney Museum organized a second, traveling retrospective of his work in 1988, and another major European survey, Donald Judd, was mounted at Tate Modern, London, in 2004, which traveled to major museums in Dusseldorf and Basel through 2005.

In 2006, Donald Judd Foundation established an endowment to support its operations through the sale of 36 works at auction.

In 2018, Donald Judd Foundation began a long-term restoration plan for its buildings in Marfa.

The publication program of Donald Judd Foundation intends to develop texts for scholars, students, and those interested in the life and work of Donald Judd.

Donald Judd then worked with Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, where he had a number of solo shows, and PaceWildenstein, which represented him through the end of his life.

Donald Judd had homes in Manhattan, Marfa, Texas, and Kussnacht am Rigi, Switzerland.

Donald Judd died in Manhattan of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on February 12,1994.