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Donald Judd (June 3, 1928  - February 12, 1994)
was a Minimalism|minimalist artist (a term he
stridently disavowed) whose work sought autonomy
and clarity for the constructed object and the
space created by it, ultimately achieving a
rigorously democratic presentation without
compositional hierarchy.

Judd was born in Excelsior Springs,
Missouri|Excelsior Springs, Missouri. He served in
the Army from 1946-1947 as an engineer and then
began his studies in philosophy 1948 at the
College of William and Mary, later transferring to
Columbia where he earned a BA in philosophy. While
at Columbia he attended night classes at the Arts
Students League in New York City. He earned a
degree in philosophy from Columbia University and
worked towards a master's in art history there 
under Rudolf Wittkower and Meyer Shapiro.  He
supported himself by writing art criticism for
major American art magazines; his writing, like
his art, was direct, forceful, controversial and
influential.

His first solo exhibition, of expressionist
paintings, opened in New York in 1957. His
artistic style soon moved away from illusory media
and embraced constructions in which materiality
was central to the work. Humble materials such as
metals, industrial plywood, concrete and
color-impregnated Plexiglas became staples of his
career. Most of his output was in freestanding
"specific objects" (the name of his seminal essay
of 1964), that used simple, often repeated forms
to explore space and the use of space. In 1968 the
Whitney Museum of American Art staged a
retrospective of his work which included none of
his early paintings. 

In 1968 Judd bought a five story building in New
York that allowed him to start placing his work in
a more permanent manner than was possible in
gallery or museum shows. This would later lead him
to push for permanent installations for his work
and that of others, as he believed that temporary
exhibitions, being designed by curators for the
public, placed the art itself in the background,
ultimately degrading it due to incompetency or
incomprehension. This would become a major
preoccupation as the idea of permanent
installation grew in importance and his distaste
for the art world grew in equal proportion.

Throughout the seventies and eighties he produced
radical work that eschewed the classical European
ideals of representational sculpture. Judd
believed that art should not represent anything,
that it should unequivocally stand on its own and
simply exist. During the seventies he started
making room sized installations that made the
spaces themselves his playground and the viewing
of his art a visceral, physical  experience. His
aesthetic followed his own strict rules against
illusion and falsity, producing work that was
clear, strong and definite. As he grew older he
also worked with furniture, design, and
architecture.

In the early seventies Judd started making annual
trips to Baja California with his family. He was
very affected by the clean, emtpy desert and this
strong attachment to the land would remain with
him for the rest of his life. In 1971 he rented a
house in Marfa, Texas as an antidote to the hectic
New York art world. From this humble house he
would later buy numerous buildings and a 60,000
acre (243 km²) ranch, almost all carefully
restored to his exacting standards. These
properties and his building in New York are now
maintained by the Judd Foundation and the Chinati
Foundation.

In 1976 he served as Baldwin Professor at Oberlin
College in Ohio.  Beginning in 1983, he lectured
at universities across the United States, Europe
and Asia on both art and its relationship to
architecture.

In 1979, with help from the Dia Art Foundation,
Judd purchased a 340 acre (1.4 km²)
tract of desert land near Marfa, Texas which
included the abandoned buildings of the former
U.S. Army Fort D. A. Russell. The Chinati
Foundation opened on the site in 1986 as a
non-profit art foundation, dedicated to Judd and
his contemporaries. The permanent collection
consists of large-scale works by Judd, sculptor
John Chamberlain, light-artist Dan Flavin and
select others. Judd's work in Marfa includes 15
outdoor works in concrete and 100 aluminum pieces
housed in two painstakingly renovated artillery
sheds.

==References==

*Koenig, Kasper, ed. (1975) "Donald Judd: Complete
Writings, 1959-1975" Halifax and New York: Nova
Scotia College of Art & Design Press / New York
University Press.
*Judd, Donald. (1986) "Complete Writings,
1975-1986" Eindhoven, NL: Van Abbemuseum.
*Haskell, Barbara. (1988) "Donald Judd." New York:
Whitney Museum of American Art / W.W.Norton & Co.
*Agee, William C. (1995) "Donald Judd:
Sculpture/Catalogue" New York: Pace Wildenstein
Gallery.
*Kraus, Rosalind E. & Robert Smithson. (1998)
"Donald Judd: Early Fabricated Work." New York:
Pace Wildenstein Gallery.
*Serota, Nicholas et al. (2004) "Donald Judd"
London and New York: Tate Modern and D.A.P.

== External links ==
* http://www.chinati.org The Chinati Foundation/La
Fundación Chinati
*
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistI
nfo/artist/2013/lang/1 Actual exhibitions
worldwide
* http://d-sites.net/english/judd.htm 'Donald
Judd's design: a turning point in the history of
sculpture?'