What Donald Judd described as “the first big piece” and the “first free, open, dimensional sculpture” was exhibited at Green Gallery, New York (Don Judd, December 17, 1963–January 11, 1964); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (Don Judd, February 27–March 24, 1968, extended through April 14); and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940–1970, October 18, 1969–February 8, 1970).¹

Of his consistent use of red paint in the work he produced during this period, Judd said, “I like the color and I like the quality of cadmium red light,” adding,

I thought for a color it had the right value for a three-dimensional object. If you paint something black or any dark color, you can’t tell what its edges are like. If you paint it white, it seems small and purist. And the red, other than a gray of that value, seems to be the only color that really makes an object sharp and defines its contours and angles . . . the only point about the color was its capacity to define the form with clarity.²

¹ “Don Judd: An Interview with John Coplans,” in John Coplans, Don Judd, exh. cat. (Pasadena, CA: Pasadena Art Museum, 1971), 25.

² Ibid., 25, 30.