Held, Al

Al Held born in Brooklyn, New York on October 12.

Family moves to the East Bronx, New York.

Serves two years the U.S. Navy and works with a submarine squadron based at Camp Peary, Virginia.

Moves to Lower East Side, New York. Works as carpenter’s apprentice and attends drawing classes at the Art Students League, New York.

Uses GI Bill to continue his studies at the League while working nights as a dishwasher.

Hopes to study with David Alfaro Siqueiros in Mexico, but changes plans after his school loses accreditation. Applies to the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris and departs in March.

Attends drawing classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and studies sculpture with Ossip Zadkine. Befriends American artists Sam Francis, George Sugarman, Salvatore Romano, Edward Clark, Shirley Kaplan, as well as Alicia Penalba, Jean-Paul Riopelle, and Georges Duthuit. Holds his first solo exhibition at Galerie Huit in Paris, showcasing abstract paintings influenced by Jackson Pollock and Piet Mondrian. Visits Italy and Spain.

Returns to New York and moves into a loft on East Broadway. Meets Franz Kline and Mark Rothko and visits their studios.

A fire in the loft destroys many early paintings. Works as a porter at The Museum of Modern Art.

Moves to San Francisco. Meets Yvonne Rainer and Ronald Bladen.

Returns to New York and joins the community of artists centered on Tenth Street.

Participates in a group exhibition at Tanager Gallery. Meets Irving Sandler, Philip Pearlstein, and Alex Katz. Becomes a founding member of the Brata Gallery along with Krushenick, Sugarman, Romano, Clark, and others.

Two-man show with Donald Berry at the Poindexter Gallery in New York.

Sam Francis introduces him to acrylic paint. Completes the Taxi Cab series composed of geometric forms and created on large sheets of paper.

First solo show in New York at the Poindexter Gallery, displays Pigment paintings and drawings.

Second solo show at Poindexter Gallery, displays new hard-edge abstract paintings, including House of Cards. Participates in American Abstract Expressionists and Imagists at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Third and final solo show at Poindexter Gallery, displays his Alphabet Paintings series. Participates in Geometric Abstraction in America at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Becomes Visiting Critic at Yale University, New Haven, where he teaches through 1980. Participates in Toward a New Abstraction at the Jewish Museum, New York.

Begins showing with Galerie Renée Ziegler, Zürich. Participates in Post Painterly Abstraction, curated by Clement Greenberg, at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Wins Logan Medal by the Art Institute of Chicago for Genesis.

First major group show, Signale, in a European museum at the Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland. Buys a former dairy farm near Woodstock, New York, as a summer home and studio.

First museum solo show at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Receives Guggenheim Fellowship in painting. Named adjunct Associate Professor of Art at Yale University, New Haven.

First of many solo exhibitions at André Emmerich Gallery in New York. Decides to change his style drastically and begins Black and White paintings.

First American museum solo show opens at the San Francisco Museum of Art. A second solo show opens at the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, and travels to the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston. Participates in Documenta IV, Kassel, Germany.

Moves to 435 West Broadway in New York.

Completes 90-foot-long mural, Rothko’s Canvas, for the Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza in Albany, New York (installed in 1975). Named Adjunct Professor of Art at Yale University, New Haven.

Exhibits the 30-foot long painting, Noah’s Focus III, and other new works at André Emmerich Gallery in New York.

Travels to Guatemala and Peru to study Mayan ruins.

First retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Travels to Morocco.

Rents warehouse in Brooklyn to paint 180-foot-long mural, Order/Disorder/Ascension/Descension, commissioned by the Federal General Services Administration for Philadelphia.

Travels to Egypt.

First solo shows in London and in Paris. Participates in Documenta VI, Kassel, Germany.

The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston presents the exhibition, Al Held: Paintings and Drawings 1973–1978. Final exhibition of Black and White paintings at André Emmerich Gallery in New York.

First exhibition of his new Return to Color paintings at André Emmerich Gallery in New York.

Solo show of paintings from 1959–61 at Robert Miller Gallery in New York. Resigns adjunct professorship at Yale University, New Haven.

Residency at the American Academy in Rome from January to June. Studies Renaissance painting and Roman architecture. Participates in the Whitney Biennial Exhibition in New York.

Exhibits Pigment paintings at Robert Miller Gallery in New York.

Receives Jack I. and Lillian L. Poses Creative Arts Award, Painting Medal, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts. Installs mural, Mantegna’s Edge, in Texas.

Elected to American Institute of Arts and Letters. Irving Sandler publishes Al Held, the first monographic book.

Travels to Japan with Judy Pfaff on Crown Point Press trip to Tadashi Toda’s studio in Kyoto to make woodblock prints. Installs mural, Roberta’s House, in Ohio.

Participates in Seven American Masters at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Purchases property in Camerata di Todi, Italy.

Visiting artist, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine.

Al Held Foundation is incorporated.

Exhibits large new paintings in former bank building on Madison Avenue. Richard Armstrong authors second monographic book, published by Rizzoli/Poligrafa.

Presents the triptych, Ima Ima, at 650 Madison Avenue, New York, to coincide with his exhibition, New Paintings, at André Emmerich Gallery. Shows Noah’s Focus II in Al Held: Four Black and White Paintings at 650 Madison.

Installs Gravity’s Rainbow, 55 stained glass windows totaling 440-feet in length in the new terminal of the Ronald Reagan National Airport, Washington, D.C.

Begins work at Tyler Graphics, Mount Kisco, New York, on the Prime Moments lithographs, which are published the following year. Al Held (The Last Series: 1964-65) opens at the Robert Miller Gallery in New York.

The mural, Mantegna’s Edge, is reinstalled at the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Florida.

Expanding Universe: The Recent Paintings of Al Held, organized by the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, travels to multiple venues. Solo exhibition, Al Held: Recent Painting, at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, New York.

Installs 102-foot long glass mosaic, Passing Through, in the 53rd Street/Lexington Avenue subway station, New York.

Completes first of four 60-foot paintings commissioned for the Robert A. M. Stern-designed Jacksonville Library and watercolor maquettes for stained-glass windows in the Orlando Federal Court House. Dies July 26 in Camerata di Todi, Italy.