Image Coming Soon

Yellow Horse

ca. 1942-43

American, 1900-1973

Born in Germany, Carl Holty studied in the U.S. and then in Paris, where he met Robert Delaunay and became a member of Abstraction-Création, the French association of abstract artists. He returned to New York in 1935, renewed his contacts with the artist community-including his former teacher Hans Hofmann and Stuart Davis-and became the chairman of the American Abstract Artists group which had formed to protest "Social Realism." In a statement about his approach to abstraction, Holty once observed: "In breaking up the shapes or forms, it is imperative not to attempt to rejoin them because that leads to transformation only. By breaking them and keeping them broken, the forms, large and small, are simply densities in the rhythmic movement of color and shapes."

Oil on board

54 x 40 in. (137.2 x 101.6 cm)

Gift of the Estate of Mark Tobey

87.26

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Mark Tobey: Smashing Forms and Mark Tobey and Friends", November 16, 2002 - April 6, 2003

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "International Abstraction: Making Painting Real", May 2, 2003 - February 29, 2004

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM