Abstraction of Purple, Blue, and Yellow - Robert Lohman, c. 1962

Robert Lohman’s Abstraction of Purple, Blue, and Yellow, is a quieter and more atmospheric work than many of the later 1980s calligraphic abstractions. Where the 1981 works often rely on animated contour, theatrical wit, and figural suggestion, this piece is governed by wash, linearity, and chromatic restraint. Lohman builds the composition through loose vertical and diagonal passages of diluted watercolor, allowing blue, lavender, gray, and ochre-yellow to drift across the paper in a manner that feels both architectural and ephemeral.

The work is organized less around a central subject than around a field full of color. Pale blue marks descend from the upper portion of the sheet like arches, columns, or weathered fragments of light. These vertical gestures create a loose internal structure, but Lohman avoids hard boundaries. Forms bleed, soften, and dissolve into the surrounding white ground. The result is an abstraction that feels open and full, as though the image is in the process of appearing and disappearing at the same time.

Color is the primary organizing force. The blues establish the dominant atmosphere: cool, aqueous, and spatially recessive. Lavender and purple passages introduce a more concentrated emotional register, particularly in the central and right areas, where the darker marks create moments of density within the otherwise translucent field. Yellow appears sparingly but decisively. Its warmth interrupts the cool palette, creating small zones of illumination that prevent the composition from becoming purely tonal or melancholic. The yellow strokes act almost like light passing through a blue-gray environment.

The composition has a subtle architectural quality. Several of the vertical washes suggest columns, apertures, walls, or hanging forms, while the curved blue and purple elements create softer counter-movements. This gives the work a tension between structure and atmosphere. Lohman is not painting architecture literally, but he seems interested in the way abstract marks can imply spatial depth, enclosure, and passage. The sheet becomes a kind of interior space without ever describing a room.

The brushwork is restrained but highly sensitive. Lohman allows the watercolor to retain its natural transparency, and much of the image’s complexity comes from the overlap of thin washes rather than from heavy mark-making. This creates a sense of visual softness. The hand is present, but not emphatic. Unlike his later works, where line often performs in a lively, almost musical way, the line here is more subdued. The few stronger purple and blue marks function as accents within a larger atmosphere of dilution and restraint.

The date of 1962 is of note because the work seems closer to mid-century lyrical abstraction than to Lohman’s more character-driven later pieces. It shows an artist thinking through color, space, and gesture without the overt humor or figural play that appears in works such as Madame Plumage or Banana Improvisation. Here, abstraction is not theatrical; it is meditative. The work’s intelligence lies in its restraint, in the way Lohman allows a limited palette and a sequence of washes to generate depth and movement.

The white ground is essential to the painting’s success. Lohman does not cover the sheet; he activates it. The untouched paper operates as light, space, and silence. The colored marks appear to hover within this field rather than sit on top of it. This gives the work a delicate atmospheric quality, almost like an abstracted landscape, a memory of water, or a partially dissolved architectural study. The image remains ambiguous, but its ambiguity feels intentional and controlled.