ABSTRACT
While he is perhaps a lesser-known figure today, David Novros exhibited widely in the sixties and was arguably the most critically admired of the three painters under consideration in this study. This chapter centers around Novros’s relationship with Donald Judd, beginning with his early debts to Judd’s criticism during the formative years of his career and concluding with his creation of a fresco in the sculptor’s SoHo residence. These artistic exchanges could be seen as paradoxical in light of Judd’s current renown as one of Minimalism’s leading theorists of painting’s demise and thus necessitate a revised understanding of his position on the medium. A critical re-reading of his writings reveals him to have envisioned a future for painting, albeit one that had absorbed the implications of recent literalist art. Novros’s fresco embodied one such future, as it conformed with elements of Judd’s own practice, such as his materially specific application of color and his interest in creating permanent, site-specific art installations.
