Tondo Variation in Red

Ilya Bolotowsky, Tondo Variation in Red, 1978, acrylic on canvas, 39 ¹⁄₄ in. (99.8 cm) diam., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters through its Hassam and Speicher Purchase Fund, 1978, 1979.11

Artwork Details

Title: Tondo Variation in Red
Artist: Ilya Bolotowsky
Date: 1978
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: 39 ¹⁄₄ in. (99.8 cm) diam.
Credit Line: Gift of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters through its Hassam and Speicher Purchase Fund, 1978
Mediums: acrylic
Mediums Description: acrylic on canvas
Classifications: Painting
Subjects: Abstract — geometric
Object Number: 1979.11
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1979.11

Artwork Description

At the University of Wyoming, where he taught after serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, Bolotowsky met a farmer who gave him several wagon wheels. He stretched canvas over the wheels’ rims and called these round paintings tondos, as a reference to the circular paintings of Raphael. For the next twenty years, he experimented with the optical effects posed by this round format. In Tondo Variation in Red horizontal white lines support the dark red shape in the upper half of the canvas, while another vertical red plane bounded by a straight, blue band anchors the reds and keeps the canvas from appearing to roll to the left.

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