Donald Judd

Donald Judd (born June 3, 1928, Excelsior Springs, Missouri, U.S.—died February 12, 1994, New York, New York) was an American artist and critic associated with Minimalism. Credited as Minimalism’s principal spokesman, Judd wrote what is considered to be one of the most significant texts of the movement, “Specific Objects” (1965). The article laid out the Minimalist platform of stressing the physical, phenomenological experience of objects rather than representing any metaphysical or metaphoric symbolism. Judd’s sculpture was based almost exclusively on the box form—either alone or in series of modules, on the wall or on the floor—with artworks varying in colour, material, scale, proportion, and number. Like other Minimalists of his generation, Judd was preoccupied with the use of industrial materials and their placement in specific arrangements and at particular sites. He never referred to himself as a sculptor but rather as a maker of specific objects.

Judd attended the Art Students League in New York City from 1948 to 1953 and then Columbia University, where in 1953 he graduated cum laude with a B.S. in philosophy. From 1959 to 1965 he wrote art criticism for several American art magazines. Interested in the scale and physicality of the reigning Abstract Expressionists, Judd began his work as an artist by painting. Though he retained a lifelong interest in the aesthetics of painting, in 1962 he abandoned the medium as too illusionistic and turned to relief sculpture and then freestanding work. He worked with industrial materials such as transparent coloured plastics and anodized aluminum, and he had much of his work industrially fabricated to obtain a perfect finish and remove all association with the handmade.

After 1980 his sculptures began to take up more space and became more complex; some of his modular units achieved a length of 80 feet (24 metres). In 1981 he moved to West Texas, where in 1986 he opened a contemporary art museum, the Chinati Foundation, in the town of Marfa. The 340-acre (138-hectare) site features permanent installations by Judd and a number of other artists, including Dan Flavin, John Chamberlain, Carl Andre, Ingólfur Arnarsson, Roni Horn, Ilya Kabakov, Richard Long, Claes Oldenburg, Coosje van Bruggen, David Rabinowitch, and John Wesley.

During his later life Judd designed furniture and a number of buildings (some realized). He died at the age of 65 from lymphoma.