About the Artwork
Newman has described the dark cadmium red of this painting as a symbolic reference to the earth. The unmodulated, painstakingly applied color is interrupted by the precisely centered white stripe, which he called a "zip." The "zip" suggests an instantaneous moment, like a flash of lightning, which enlivens the enveloping spell of the red field. The title connotes existence or being, reduced to a single compelling command: Be! This painting, one of the artist's last completed works, is a later version of a similar painting of 1949 that was damaged beyond repair.
Be I (second version)
1970
Barnett Newman
1905-1970
American
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Acrylic on canvas
Unframed: 111 1/2 × 84 × 1 5/16 inches (283.2 × 213.4 × 3.3 cm)
Paintings
Contemporary Art after 1950
Founders Society Purchase, W. Hawkins Ferry Fund and Mr. and Mrs. Walter Buhl Ford II Fund
76.78
Restricted
Markings
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Provenance
1977-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)For more information on provenance, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Hess, Thomas B. "Barnett Newman." Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1971, p. 145 (ill.).
Bulletin of the DIA 56, no. 1 (1977): p. 35 (ill.).
Rosenberg, Harold. Barnett Newman. New York, 1978, p. 41; p. 144 (ill.).
Neff, John Hallmark. "A Barnett Newman for Detroit." Bulletin of the DIA 56, no. 3 (1978): pp. 159-167 (ill.).
Colby, Joy. "At Art Institute, drawings with zip." The Detroit News, August 19, 1979, p. 6-E.
100 Masterworks from the Detroit Institute of Arts. New York, 1985, pp. 230-231 (ill.).
Abstract Expressionism: The Critical Developments. Exh. cat., Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Buffalo, 1988, pp. 218-219, cat. no. 52.
Bois, Yve-Alain. "Perceiving Newman." Exh. cat., Pace Gallery. New York, 1988, p. VI.
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Credit Line for Reproduction
© 2005 Barnett Newman Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Barnett Newman, Be I (second version), 1970, acrylic on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, W. Hawkins Ferry Fund and Mr. and Mrs. Walter Buhl Ford II Fund, 76.78.
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