MODERN DOCUMENTS
Ad Reinhardt
THE ARTIST IN SEARCH OF
A CODE OF ETHICS
Sometimes referred to as the ' 'conscience ofthe art wor/d" because
of his abrasive insistence on the morality of art, Ad Reinhardt became
increasingly disturbed by the commercialism and phIlistine attitudes he saw
beginning to dominate the art wor/d, A lIfe-long member of the Amencan
Abstract Artists, Reinhardt, who died in
1967,
was the only first generation
New York Schoolpainter who neverpainted the figure, Educated at Colum–
bia University , he based his sophisticated aesthetics on the theon'es of a
"pure " art formulated by Roger
Fry
and Clive Bell. Reinhardt did not waver
in his commitment to abstract art, on the one hand, and to socialist politics,
on the other, However, he never confused the two , although he was active
politically and drew cartoons for the leftist weekly, PM,
Toward the end of his Itfe, Reinhardt saw abstract art, which had
achieved what seemed to be permanent success, reduced once again to a
minon'ty role in the changing structure ofthe artwor/d, now captivated by the
media-on'ented styles like "op,
"
''pop,'' and " minimal" art, Although
Reinhardt took some pleasure in the belated recognition ofhis work (he was
the last ofthe New York School to be officially canonized; his black paintings
were stIli drawing n'dicule at the time of his death) , and enjoyed being
thought ofas the father of "minimal" art, he was depressed by what he
correctly perceived as a declining morality among artists, "Art," he fre–
quently complained, " is not the spin'tual side of business,
"
In an unpublished talk delivered at the Artists Club on Apnl
1,
1960,
Reinhardt articulated a moral position from which he never diverged–
although he judged others as having been corrupted from worship of the
golden calf DedIcatedironically to the "seventeen irascible artists " of1950 •
'Reinhardt is referring to the celebrated " irascible eighteen " who picketed the Metropolitan Museum in
19)0, protesting the Museum 's bias against American art , Along with Barnett Newman , Clyfford Still,Jackson
Pollock and Robert Motherwell , Reinhardt was a member of this group , whose protest is recorded in a fre–
quently reproduced photograph of the New York School. By reducing the number of "irascibles" to seven–
teen, Reinhardt dissociated himself from what he felt were the compromises made by his contemporaries,
