HARD-EDGE

Theo Van Doesburg

Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, PopArt, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting. Other, earlier, movements, or styles have also contained the quality of hard-edgedness, for instance the Precisionists also displayed this quality to a great degree in their work. Hard-edge can be seen to be associated with one or more school of painting, but is also a generally descriptive term, for these qualities found in any painting. Hard-edged painting can be both figurative or nonrepresentational. This style of hard-edge geometric abstraction recalls the earlier work of Kasimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, Theo van Doesburg, and Piet Mondrian. Other artists associated with Hard-edge painting include Herb Aach, Josef Albers, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Max Bill, Ilya Bolotowsky, Ralph Coburn, Nassos Daphnis, Ronald Davis, Gene Davis, Burgoyne Diller, Peter Halley, Al Held,Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Günther C. Kirchberger, Alexander Liberman, Agnes Martin, Kenneth Noland, Georg Karl Pfahler, Ad Reinhardt, Bridget Riley, Ludwig Sander, Leon Polk Smith,Julian Stanczak, Frank Stella, Myron Stout, Leo Valledor, Victor Vasarely, Charmion von Wiegand, Neil Williams, Larry Zox and Barbro Östlihn.