1958
Oil on linen
16 x 12 inches (40.64  x 30.48 cm)
Initialed ‘RH’ lower left, signed, titled and dated verso
Ex-collection:
The Artist
Private collection
Christie’s, New York, November 1, 1994, Lot 19
The Collection of Paul F. Walter 1994 -2017

Humphrey’s artistic style went through several phases and developments, which can be roughly outlined in the following way: monochromes from 1957–60; frame paintings 1961–65; shaped canvases 1967–70; constructed paintings 1971–1990. Throughout these phases, Humphrey kept a keen eye on color, light, and space while he moved between abstraction and representation. In reviewing Humphrey’s show at Tibor de Nagy in 1960, Donald Judd said, of his monochromes, “They are subtle and single-colored. This is Purism of a sort, in which generality does not contain variables but excludes them, in which the basic diagram or color, the only continuity, is exposed, here the essence of a confused sequence of perceptions. Donald Judd also likened these canvases to the work of Malevich, Mondrian, and Albers.