Untitled 1950 - 1954

Franz Kline made this untitled painting, most likely with black ink, on a page torn from the Brooklyn phone book. It’s a pretty gutsy move – this inky blackness slashing across the mundane columns of names. I can almost feel the brush in my own hand. Did he do it in one go? Or did he build it up, shifting and turning the page as he went? You can sense Kline’s energy in that direct, confident stroke – a kind of dance between control and chaos. The solid black shapes are bold and confrontational, but the fragile, torn paper hints at the vulnerability beneath the surface. I imagine Kline, maybe late at night in his studio, feeling the weight of the city, the weight of all those names and numbers, and just needing to make a mark, a defiant gesture against the grid. It’s like he’s saying, ‘I’m here, I exist, and I’m going to make my mark on this world, even if it’s just a black slash on a phone book page.’