Total Surface: Barnett Newman’s Late Work / Interviews with Michelle White and Bradford A. Epley by David Ebony

David Ebony | Yale ARTBooks | 27th August 2015

Barnett Newman believed that his paintings with their vertical “zips” were epic.  Some critics at the time agreed and, as the curator of a recent show comments, the paintings do “[push] you out and into your own physical space [when standing] in front of the work”.  But critical ardour has perhaps cooled with time. Grumbled Robert Hughes, Newman’s colour field style “encouraged a phony grandiloquence”.