Circle
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Circle
Maker
Ilya Bolotowsky
(b. 1907, St. Petersburg, Russia – d. 1981, New York, New York)
Date1949
MediumOil on canvas mounted on board
DimensionsDiameter: 17 3/4 in. (45.1 cm)
Credit LineGift of Professor Hugo and Peggy Bowen Munsterberg (Class of 1943)
Object number1974.15
Status
Not on viewRightsCopyright is retained in accordance with U.S. Copyright laws
Photo creditDavis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
More InformationA Russian-born immigrant to the United States, Bolotosky rejected the “academic Impressionism” of his early training at the National Academy of Design in New York. He embraced the tenets of De Stijl and through his painting further extended the geometric precision and primary palette of Piet Mondrian’s Neo-Plasticism—favoring vertical and horizontal lines and striving for the harmonic balance of pure abstraction. Bolotowsky stepped in for artist Josef Albers to teach at Black Mountain College from 1946 to 1948. In Circle, completed the next year, the artist experiments with the interplay between a shaped canvas and rectilinear forms. Note the exacting brushwork and a surface so finely painted as to belie the artist’s hand.