Kenneth Noland

@Artists, Career and Childhood

Kenneth Noland was an American abstract painter

Apr 10, 1924

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Biography

Personal Details

  • Birthday: April 10, 1924
  • Died on: January 5, 2010
  • Nationality: American
  • Famous: Artists & Painters, Artists, Abstract Painters
  • Spouses: Cornelia Langer, Paige Rense, Peggy Schiffer, Stephanie Gordon
  • Siblings: Billie Noland, Harry Noland Jr., Lawrence Noland, Neil Noland
  • Known as: Kenneth Clifton Noland

Kenneth Noland born at

Asheville, North Carolina, U.S.

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Birth Place

Kenneth Noland was married four times. His first wife was the daughter of U.S. senator William Langer. The couple had three children, Cady, Lyndon, and William. They divorced soon after.

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Personal Life

He had an affair with artist and socialite Mary Pinchot Meyer in the 1960s.

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Personal Life

In April 1967, he married psychologist Stephanie Gordon. He and Stephanie lived together for three years before marrying. They divorced three years after in June 1970.

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Personal Life

Kenneth Clifton Noland was born on April 10, 1924, in Asheville, North Carolina. His parents were pathologist Harry Caswell Noland and Bessie Noland.

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Childhood & Early Life

He was one of five siblings, David, Bill, Neil, and Harry Jr. He described his father as an amateur painter who instilled the love of the arts and painting in him.

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Childhood & Early Life

He completed high school in 1942 and later attended Black Mountain College for two years near his hometown. At Black Mountain, he studied color theory and contrasts of negative space, and geometric abstraction.

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Childhood & Early Life

In 1948, he traveled to Paris to study under Russian sculptor, OssipZadkine. He would later go on to rebel against cubist teachings focusing on simplicity and form.

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Childhood & Early Life

Uunder the guidance of Zadkine in 1949, he had his first one-person exhibition of his paintings in France at the Galerie Raymond Creuze.

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Career

Noland began his career as a teacher. After his education in Paris, he returned to America and began teaching fine arts at the “Institute of Contemporary Art” in Washington DC. He taught there for 3 years from 1949 to 1951.

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Career

In the summer of 1950, he met artist Helen Frankenthaler and critic, Clement Greenberg. Both of them would become his greatest supporters. This meeting was a turning point in his career as it helped him develop his artistic style.

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Career

His meeting with Helen Frankenthaler enabled him to adopt her “soak-stain” techniques into his own canvases. During his period at the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts in DC, he met Morris Louis, another artist in his league.

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Career

From 1951 to 1960, he taught at the “Catholic University” in Washington DC. He also taught at the “Washington Workshop Center for the Arts” from 1952 to 1956.

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Career

“Beginning” (1958) was one of his earliest paintings that depicted a bull’s eye using an unlikely combination of colors. His belief was that any piece should be about the art and not the artist. During this period, he created a series of art that were similar to targets.

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Major Works

He indulged in creating many geometric abstracts such as “Baba Yagga” (1964) and “Galore” (1966).

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Major Works