This shallow relief, which incorporates a folded aluminum triangle, was reproduced widely in reviews of New Work: Part I at Green Gallery, New York (January 8–February 2, 1963). This was Donald Judd’s first group exhibition at Green Gallery, where a year later he would exhibit his first solo show to include work in three dimensions (Don Judd, December 17, 1963–January 11, 1964). Of the three pieces by Judd shown in New Work: Part I, Michael Fried wrote that they “make one want to see more of his work.”¹ And of the same work, Sidney Tillim wrote, “the work’s claim upon space is real, an abstract object that verges on sculpture while retaining its pictorial axis.”²

By incorporating found, real objects into his paintings during this period, Judd avoided illusionistic representation. “Without trying to obscure our sense of what they obviously are,” Roberta Smith wrote, “he makes them abstract.”³

¹Michael Fried “New York Letter,” Art International, February 1963, 64.

²Sidney Tillim, “New York Exhibitions: Month in Review,” Arts Magazine, March 1963, 62.

³Roberta Smith, “Donald Judd,” in Donald Judd: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Objects, and Wood-Blocks 1960–1974, ed. Brydon Smith. Exh. cat. (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1975),19.