Mother of Night – 10 by Jules Olitski

Associated with the Color Field movement, which abandoned figurative and gestural paintings for flat expanses of color, Jules Olitski (Snovsk, Ukraine 1922–2007 New York, NY) approached Color Field painting with an additional interest in the materiality of paint. By spraying, rolling, and scraping paint onto canvas, he achieved rich texture and heavy impasto that is without narrative. He captures the interplay of light and color in Mother of Night – 10 with opulent and crackling yellow undulating across the surface. A thin line of blue and pink on the left edge is a common device used by the artist to subtly disrupt the viewer’s experience. Though evocative, the title of the work is not meant to be interpretive, as it was given after the work was completed and used solely for identification.

—Hilary Schroeder, assistant curator