Robert Ryman's first encounter with the contemporary art of his day came in his early 20s. Having moved from his native Tennessee to New York in 1953, with the intention of becoming a jazz musician, he began working at MoMA as a security guard. Upon seeing the recently acquired works of the Abstract Expressionists, he became increasingly interested in painting and began to work as a visual artist that same year. His first significant painting was a canvas in monochrome orange dated 1955-59 (which has recently come into the collection of MoMA, where it all began), although Ryman later became known above all for his monochrome white works.
His break-through came in the late 1960s, with his first solo show at Paul Bianchini Gallery in New York in 1967 and another at Galerie Heiner Friedrich in Munich in 1968. The following year, Ryman's work was included in the important survey exhibition of Minimalist and Conceptual artists, titled When Attitudes Become Form, at the Kunsthalle Bern. In 1972, the Guggenheim Museum in New York devoted an exhibition to the artist's paintings dating from 1965 to 1971.
Thanks to the artist's recent donation, the Dia Art Foundation has the largest holdings of Robert Ryman's work with 21 paintings of all periods. Individual works are also found in many of the world's leading public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate, London; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.