In November, 1961, a loose assortment of colorful, roundish structures ascends diagonally across a searingly red spatial environment. A glimmer of yellow in the lower left corner and a swipe of green at upper right imply that the scene continues beyond the frame’s edge. Lobdell built up the surface in stages using a range of painterly techniques—from smearing viscous pigment with a palette knife to flinging it on with his paintbrush. The difficulty of describing the amoebic appendage and its thickly accreted surroundings encourages a visceral response to the work. As the artist explained later in life: “The truth is, you’re after something beyond words. Hence, if there are words, you haven’t done it really. If you can find words for something, then you’d better get back to work.”
Details
- Artist Name: Frank Lobdell (American, 1921-2013)
- Title: November 1961
- Date: 1961
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 71-1/2 x 60-1/8 in. (181.6 x 152.7 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Anonymous Gift through the American Federation of Art, Museum Donor Program
- Accession Number: P.1962.26
- Copyright: © 2011 Frank Lobdell
Object Information
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1962-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, 1975.
Frank Lobdell
- Pasadena, Pasadena Art Museum, 1966-03-15 to 1966-04-10
- Stanford, Stanford Museum, 1966-05-01 to 1966-05-31
Fifteen Profiles: Distinguished California Modernists
- Fresno Art Museum, 1995-11-07 to 1996-02-07
West Coast 1945-1969
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1969-11-24 to 1970-01-18
Surface Truths: Abstract Painting in the Sixties
- Norton Simon Museum, 2011-03-25 to 2011-08-15
A Salute to the Ferus Gallery
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-09-23 to 1994-03-20
Alternate Realities: Altoon, Diebenkorn, Lobdell, Woelffer
- Norton Simon Museum, 2022-05-13 to 2022-08-22
- Pasadena Art Museum, Frank Lobdell Retrospective, 1963,
- Pasadena Art Museum, West Coast 1945-1969, 1969,
- Beneke, Daphne Lane, Fifteen Profiles: Distinguished California Modernists, 1995, pp. 8, 9
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Frank Lobdell: Making and Meaning, 2003, fig. 50, 51 p. 20, 86-87, 388
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