Pace Gallery is pleased to present Kenneth Noland: Into the Cool, an exhibition of never before exhibited works from the end of the groundbreaking artist’s life. These paintings, completed in a subtle color palette, present a new approach to both material and technique. An extension of his earlier work, the artists last series show him having achieved a mastery of his medium. Into the Cool will be open from January 26 through March 4, 2017, at 32 East 57th Street. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue reproducing the entire series of 18 paintings and an essay by art historian William Agee.

The exhibition includes 15 of the 18 acrylic paintings on canvas in Noland’s series Into the Cool, made in 2006 and 2007. Together these works reveal the emotional effects and expressive potential of color and form, while outlining the artist’s commitment to the possibilities of abstraction. Returning to his use of the circle, emphasis on the center, and expressive, gestural brush strokes, the paintings show Noland focused on his application of paint. Continuing to use his technique, established in the 1950s, of staining unsized raw canvas with acrylic paint, here Noland has expanded upon it by not only painting the front surface of the canvas, but also working from behind. This modification in process highlights the artist’s painterly abilities, as well as his constant experimentation.

As with Noland’s earlier work, he continued to apply color as a physical material substance, but unlike his earlier hard edged paintings which rely on fields of dense color, for Into the Cool he used color through subtle tone and transparency. Noland achieved this varied application of paint and emphasis on certain colors by using a gel medium, which sits on the surface of the paintings and gives the color a tangible, physical quality. William Agee writes that the paintings—specifically Burst—have “perfect pitch, a fusion of emphatic color at right center to barely discernible at left and center bottom; an in and out weaving of pinks and blues; quasi-geometric shapes with an amorphous bleeding of the hues with a touch of mastery that certifies Noland’s genius.” The culmination of a lifetime of artistic experimentation, these last paintings show an artist drawing from aspects of his earlier works, to find a masterful series of original works.

Running concurrently with Kenneth Noland: Into the Cool, Pace Prints will exhibit four related works, as well as other prints and works on handmade paper made by Noland in his last years.