Robert Ryman 1979: An Interview

American painter, Robert Ryman (b. 1930) is associated wth the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism and conceptual art.  The artist first moved to New York City from Nashville with the intention of becoming a jazz musician. In 1953 he took a temporary job—where he would ultimately work for seven years—as a guard at the Museum of Modern Art. Soon after, he would decide to devote his career towards painting. In his first paintings and collages from the mid-1950s, he experimented with material, color and brushwork, eventually reducing the painting to its barest elements. Eventually, he settled on a square with white paint as the basis of his life-long investigation.

“I don’t really know what it will look like when its finished--sometimes it’s a big surprise, which is good, when some discovery has been made that I didn’t consider at the beginning,” Ryman says in this interview with Kate Horsfield.

A historical interview originally recorded in 1979 and re-edited in 2003 with support from the Lyn Blumenthal Memorial Fund.