Alphabet Paintings

March 20, 2013, 8:30am

Letter Press: Al Held Alphabet Paintings at Cheim & Read

Some of the most massive — and massively satisfying visually, despite of and due to their reverberating minimalism — paintings exhibited in the West Chelsea gallery run right now hang in Cheim & Read, in Al Held's seven-part suite of classic Alphabet Paintings. These are a treat: they exemplify Held's 'golden age' geometric abstraction as much as Rene Magritte's The Treachery of Images is tied to Surrealism and Damien Hirst's shark the excessive '90s. But seriously, Held's early hard-edge compositions, spanning 1961-67 and dipping into his deftness with black and white, leave big impressions. — Brian Fee, Austin contributor