Roberta Smith did this with Steven Parrino’s death notice as well–managed to convey her boredom and a faint whiff of disapproval in a forum where it’s not appropriate. I mean, the guy’s dead, he is now beyond the iron grip of the Times’ judgment. Grimes’ term “high modernist” is a better way to describe Noland–to me “formalist” carries the implication of pedantry. What’s more annoying about Smith using that word to describe him, though, is the “perhaps to his detriment” without any explanation. Detriment in Smith’s mind certainly. The ultimate detriment will be if later artists see nothing inspiring in his work, and that has proven not to be the case again and again during Smith’s tenure (everything from Neo Geo to Monique Prieto to Marc Handelman shows the influence of Noland’s school, even if it is ironic.)

It is perhaps difficult to recapture the significance of Noland's beautiful yet remote targets to artists and critics growing up in the 1960s. The targets solved a lot of esthetic problems: they cleaned up the messiness of Johns and Rauschenberg, they had a touch more subjective beauty than Stella but not too much, they were cool, detached signs that even Warhol's soup cans had to defer to and they anticipated Judd's specific objects and the dematerialization movement of the ‘70s.

There is a sentence in Smith's notice semi-explaining the "detriment" Noland suffered by remaining "ardently loyal to his formalist principles." I don't remember it being in there but I could have missed it. She says it's because color field lost "market share and critical stature." I think what she really meant to say is his work got bad, which she ascribes to inflexibility on his part. As for "loss of market share," I rather doubt that for the early work. Without researching it I'd say an early Noland target was still fetching decent prices before his death. And it's not like museums de-accessioned them en masse after color field "lost."
- tom moody 1-07-2010 2:33 pm [add a comment]

TM/AFC noted KN discussed
- bill 1-07-2010 7:47 pm [add a comment]

i posted a link to AFC on my FB page for this story. no one would touch it. seems a lot of peeps are also "friends" with JS. not too many comments at AFC either for that matter. too hot to handle or perceived as nitpicking?
- bill 1-08-2010 4:01 pm [add a comment]

They don't remember who Noland was.
- alex 1-09-2010 12:47 am [add a comment]

Combination: "friends," don't know Noland, don't care, don't want to be identified with some of the crotchety flat-earthers out there (not me of course). Hey, flat-earthers, flatness, I made a joke.
- tom moody 1-09-2010 4:10 am [add a comment]

And let's add, the usual fearful who wouldn't want an obit like that but don't want to jeopardize their non-standing in the community by chiming in. I did get about 8 new twitter followers after that appeared--I take that as support.
- tom moody 1-09-2010 4:30 am [add a comment]