Untitled

About this work

You see a long, narrow canvas painted in three flat bands of color: pale gray on top, bright orange in the middle, and deep green at the bottom. Schmidt made this in 1965, when most painters still worked with oil. Instead, he used synthetic polymer paint—basically, the same stuff in house paint—which dried faster and let him cover large areas without brushstrokes. The colors don’t blend or fade; they just sit side by side, sharp and even. That choice feels quiet but deliberate, like he’s testing how little you need to call something a painting. To see how other artists played with flat color, look up The Museum of Modern Art.