Joe zucker | Thomas Brambilla

"I have diversity in my work, but I also have control of it. I rarely paint things that I like."

Joe Zucker (1941-2024) has consistently for over four decades been one of America's most innovative artists. From the Seventies, Zucker experimented with what has become his signature technique: canvases composed by cotton balls rolled in paint. Resulting in a highly textured surface reminiscent of mosaic, this technique radically transforms the surface of the canvas and challenges the “flatness”. Zucker, like Robert Ryman, was and remains acutely focused on building a painting out of painting’s most basic means and materials: the visible interaction of the painting tool, the application of paint, the materiality and shape of the support. Throughout his extensive career, Zucker has exhibited alongside artists such as Agnes Martin and Brice Marden at the pioneering Bykert Gallery in the 1960s, and later with dealer Holly Solomon, who was well known for her support of new and experimental mediums.

Zucker’s work is in extensive public collections including: The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, The New Museum in New York, The New York Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia, The Tel Aviv Museum in Israel, The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, The Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and many others.