Black and White

Black and White — Ad Reinhardt. 1947.

Medium: Oil on canvas. Dimensions: 152.4 × 101.6 cm (60 × 40 in.).

Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

This visually electric work demonstrates Ad Reinhardt’s early exploration of the ways black and white paints reflect and absorb light, appear when applied in thin washes or thick impasto, adhere to a canvas, and respond to a brush. Black and White also reveals Reinhardt’s nuanced understanding of the sometimes surprising material and perceptual effects of color, which he rigorously addressed through the color black’s multiple optical possibilities. Although the artist largely abandoned gestural abstraction by the early 1950s in favor of rigid geometric structures, Reinhardt continued to pursue a robust argument in his paintings against the commonly perceived emptiness or invisibility of black.

Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.