26 Dec '62 (no. 5) 1962

This stark drawing was made by Anne Truitt on December 26th, 1962. Look at this heavy black block, teetering, expanding, pressing against the edges of the page. It’s balanced, just barely, on a tiny white rectangle – a missing piece, a negative space that somehow holds the whole form up. The black ink is dense and opaque, flattened, but up close you can see the texture of the paper coming through. You get a sense of how the ink was applied, in layers, pooling slightly at the edges. There are some small imperfections, little hiccups that reveal the artist’s hand, making the image less about perfection and more about process. Truitt is part of a lineage of artists who were exploring flatness and geometric forms, like Agnes Martin, but she brings a personal, almost diaristic quality to her work. The date in the title suggests a specific moment, a feeling, an event distilled into this essential shape. A reminder that even the most minimal forms can hold a lot of weight.