id:			375552
accession number:	2019.58.b
share license status:	Copyrighted
url:			https://clevelandart.org/art/2019.58.b
updated:		2023-03-22 03:05:27.937000

Blue Rational/Irrational (right panel), 1969. Al Loving (American, 1935–2005). Acrylic on canvas; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the KeyBank Collection 2019.58.b © The Estate of Al Loving and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York

title:				Blue Rational/Irrational (right panel)
title in original language:	
series:				
series in original language:	
creation date:			1969
creation date earliest:		1964
creation date latest:		1974
current location:		224A Contemporary Corridor
creditline:			Gift of the KeyBank Collection
copyright:			© The Estate of Al Loving and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York

---

culture:	America
technique:	Acrylic on canvas
department:	Contemporary Art
collection:	CONTEMP - Painting
type:		Painting
find spot:	
catalogue raisonne: 

---

CREATORS

* Al Loving (American, 1935–2005)  - artist

---

measurements: 
state of the work:	
edition of the work: 	

support materials:


inscriptions:

---

CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

	title:		Contemporary Gallery Reinstallation 2021
	opening date:   2021-04-20T04:00:00
	<i>Contemporary Gallery Reinstallation 2021</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer).

---

LEGACY EXHIBITIONS

* <em>Alvin Loving: Paintings</em>. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (December 19, 1969–January 25, 1970).

---

PROVENANCE

	Collection of the artist
	date: 1969-?
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


	(KeyBank Collection, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)
	date: early 1990s-2019
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


	The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
	date: 2019-
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


---

fun fact:
This was included in <em>Al Loving: Paintings </em>(1969) at the Whitney Museum, the museum’s first solo exhibition of work by an African American artist.

digital description:
Across both canvases of this large-scale diptych, Loving evokes a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface through strategic layerings of cubic forms and carefully calibrated color juxtapositions. Around the time Loving made this work he wrote, “I am tired of objects on walls. The wall must be pierced, brought forward, pushed back.” <em>Blue Rational/Irrational</em> is a bold manifestation of this sentiment.

wall description:

---

RELATED WORKS

---

CITATIONS

	Cooke, Lynne, and Douglas Crimp. Outliers and American Vanguard Art. 2018.
	page number: 	96-97
	url:		

	Bowling, Frank, and Kellie Jones. Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction 1964-1980 : Frank Bowling, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Ed Clark, Melvin Edwards, Fred Eversley, Sam Gilliam, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Tom Lloyd, Al Loving, Joe Overstreet, Howardena Pindell, Haywood Bill Rivers, Alma Thomas, Jack Whitten, William T. Williams ; [Guest Curator Kellie Jones]. 2006.
	page number: 	55
	url:		

---

IMAGES