Al Held's 1979-1985 Paintings at Paul Kasmin Gallery Reveal Italian Influence on Geometric Abstraction

From November 10, 2008, to January 10, 2009, Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York City presented an exhibition of Al Held's paintings created between 1979 and 1985. Located at 293 Tenth Avenue at 27th Street, the show highlighted a pivotal phase in the artist's career. Held, renowned for large-scale geometric abstractions, transitioned during this period from black-and-white works to color, exemplified by the 1979 painting S-E. A residency at the American Academy in Rome in 1981 profoundly influenced his later work, connecting his abstractions to Italian artistic traditions like Renaissance art and early Roman wall paintings. This experience in Rome provided a cosmopolitan context that encouraged Held to explore forms beyond New York's aesthetic debates. The exhibition included Roberta's Trip (1985), which features complex interlocking grids and circles, creating cinematic, deep spatial illusions. Held's work, characterized by inner tension between spatial orders, resisted both Abstract Expressionism and the systematic geometry of artists like Frank Stella. His idiosyncratic geometries, developed through lengthy revision processes, suggest more than formal relationships, with spherical volumes sometimes interpreted as references to the mind. The artist's appreciation for Vermeer underscored his focus on solid construction, blending abstraction with representational principles. Held continued this artistic direction until his death in Todi in 2005.