Matthew Marks Gallery

Anne Truitt

Anne Truitt was a major figure in American art for more than forty years, and her bold use of geometry and color signaled a new direction for modern sculpture. Abstract yet rich with feeling, her work is grounded in memories and sensations accumulated over a lifetime. This referentiality is in stark contrast to the literalness of Minimalism, a movement with which her work is sometimes associated. For Truitt, abstraction provided a syntax for her impressions — of people, places, ideas, and events. She wielded color and form as metaphors for thought, developing a visual grammar that remains unique in the history of art. As she explained, “What is important to me is not geometrical shape per se, or color per se, but to make a relationship between shape and color which feels to me like my experience. To make what feels to me like reality.”

Anne Truitt (1921–2004) grew up in Easton, Maryland, and spent most of her adult life in Washington, DC. The large-scale, meticulously painted wood sculptures for which she is best known were first exhibited in 1963 at the André Emmerich Gallery in New York. She lived in Japan from 1964 to 1967, and the legendary curator Walter Hopps organized her first museum retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1973. The Hirshhorn Museum in Washington mounted the first posthumous retrospective of her work in 2009, and the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid is organizing a survey exhibition. Truitt received numerous awards during her lifetime, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and five honorary doctorates. Today she is renowned not just for her art but also for her four books — Daybook (1982), Turn (1986), Prospect (1996), and Yield (2022) — which distilled years of journal entries into a vivid account of her life as an artist.

Selected Works

Exhibitions

ANNE TRUITT

November 10–December 22, 2023

522 West 22nd Street
New York

ANNE TRUITT
White Paintings

February 17–April 9, 2022

1062 North Orange Grove & Online
Los Angeles & Online

ANNE TRUITT
Sound

November 12–December 19, 2020

523 West 24th Street & Online
New York & Online

ANNE TRUITT
Paintings

September 14–October 27, 2018

522 West 22nd Street
New York

ANNE TRUITT
In Japan

September 11–October 24, 2015

523 West 24th Street
New York

ANNE TRUITT
62–63

April 18–July 2, 2015

1062 North Orange Grove
Los Angeles

ANNE TRUITT
Threshold

September 13–October 26, 2013

522 West 22nd Street
New York

ANNE TRUITT
Drawings

February 4–April 14, 2012

523 West 24th Street
New York

ANNE TRUITT
Sculpture 1962–2004

May 8–June 26, 2010

522 West 22nd Street
New York

Group Exhibitions

ONE HUNDRED DRAWINGS

November 8, 2019–January 18, 2020

523 West 24th Street
New York

THOMAS DEMAND, KATHARINA FRITSCH, ROBERT GOBER, BRICE MARDEN, KEN PRICE, MARTIN PURYEAR, CHARLES RAY, PAUL SIETSEMA, ANNE TRUITT, TERRY WINTERS

September 14–October 21, 2017

1062 North Orange Grove
7818 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles

ROBERT ADAMS, VINCENT FECTEAU, ROBERT GOBER, MARTIN PURYEAR, CHARLES RAY, ANNE TRUITT, TERRY WINTERS

October 31, 2015–February 13, 2016

523 West 24th Street
New York

A DRAWING SHOW

October 4–November 29, 2014

526 West 22nd Street
New York

PAINTING: NOW AND FOREVER, PART II

July 3–August 15, 2008

522 West 22nd Street
New York

Books

ANNE TRUITT
Paintings

ANNE TRUITT
In Japan

ANNE TRUITT
Threshold

ANNE TRUITT
Drawings

ONE HUNDRED DRAWINGS

Posters

PAINTING: NOW AND FOREVER, PART II