RONALD BLADEN
Ronaldbladenestate.com
1918 – 1936
Charles Ronald Wells Bladen was born on 13 July 1918 as the son of British immigrants in the Canadian city of Vancouver. After the daughter, Kathleen, he is the family’s second child. His father, Kenneth Bladen, was responsible for building up several steelworkers in Vancouver before working later as an expert in landscape gardening. His mother, Muriel Beatrice Tylecote, had studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and, as an active socialist, had taken part in the suffragette movement. Both parents later supported their son’s artistic interests.
The family moved several times within a relatively short period: in 1922 to the United States, to Hoquiam in Washington, and in 1926 to Aberdeen in the same state. In 1932, the family returned to Canada, living in Victoria British Columbia.
Already at the age of ten, Bladen was drawing intensively, making copies of works by Botticelli Titian, Picasso and Matisse, and creating free illustrations of Greek mythology. His talent was furthered in Aberdeen through participation in art courses at the high school while he was a pupil at junior high, and in Victoria through private art lessons given by the painter, Max Maynard. Apart from that, the young Bladen was enthusiastic about the sport, became a passionate dancer and baseball player, taking part also in tennis tournaments.
1937-1945
In 1937, Bladen began his studies at the Vancouver School of Art and continued them in 1938 to 1939, he attended additional courses in the figure study class of the painter, Allen Edwards.
In 1939, Bladen moved to San Francisco to continue his studies where, in the same year, he met the Mexican painter Diego Rivera, who was working on a large wall-painting commission. Up until 1943, Bladen studied painting and sculpture at the California School of Fine Arts, later renamed the San Francisco Art Institute, and attended evening courses at this school until 1945.
In 1941, when drafted into the Army, he was declared unfit for military service and obliged to work as a ship’s welder at the naval dockyards in Sausalito, California. For many years, this activity enabled him to earn his living as a toolmaker. This handicraft and aesthetic experience were to become important later on when constructing his sculptures.
Within a circle of friends, Bladen developed a growing interest in contemporary art, literature, music, and philosophy. He wrote poems, spent a lot of time in natural surroundings and experimented artistically with earth and plants that later lead on to a series of drawings, the Earth Drawings, which, together with the poems by Allen Ginsberg, he later published in the journal, The Ark. His spiritually and existentially oriented thinking led him to engage with East Asian philosophy.
Bladen had close contact with several writers and in 1945 joined the Libertarian Circle, a group of anarcho-pacifist artists around the writer, Kenneth Rexroth.
Bladen remained in the United States where, with interruptions, he lived in San Francisco until 1956 and then moved to New York.
1946 – 1955
In 1946, Bladen had his first solo exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. At the same time, he was awarded a scholarship by the San Francisco Art Association which enabled him to undertake an eight-week journey to Tijuana in Mexico and New Orleans from June to August, as well as a stay of several months in New York until March 1947. There, in Peggy Guggenheim’s Gallery, he saw an exhibition with works by Jackson Pollock.
Within the Libertarian Circle, together with James Harmon, Philip Lamantia, Thomas Parkinson, Kenneth Rexroth, Sanders Russell, and Robert Stock, he founded the literary journal, The Ark, in 1947. Bladen designed the cover and made contributions in the form of drawings and linocuts.
In 1948, he met the actress Barbara Gross, whom he married a year later. Their son, Bran, born 1951, died shortly after of a kidney failure. The couple moved to San Carlos in California, buying a house on Winding Bay where Bladen set up a studio.
In 1951, Ronald Bladen was naturalized as a US citizen.
In 1955, he separated from his wife, Barbara Gross. Through his friend, Kenneth Rexroth, he got to know the poet, Michael McClure, at the end of the summer and moved back to San Francisco into McClure’s communal household with Joanna McClure, James and Beverly Harmon, Price Dunn and Larry Jordan. At this time a friendship arose with the writers, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Henry Miller, as well as the painter, Al Held, who advised him to move to New York.
1956 – 1975
In 1956, Bladen moved to New York where he lived on Houston Street. Through Al Held, he got to know painters, George Sugarman and Nicholas and John Krushenick, who together founded the Brata Gallery co-operative in 1957.
Bladen continued to be active mainly as a painter. He made paintings in the style of Abstract Expressionism in which intensively colored patches of organic formations are integrated into almost landscape-like surface forms, similar in color.
In 1960, he took over Al Held studio a 5 West 21st Street, progressively restricted his painterly activity and began to occupy himself with collages made of folded paper and the first painted reliefs of plywood. As in previous years, to earn his living, he worked as a toolmaker.
In 1962, he exhibited his painted plywood reliefs for the first time at the Brata Gallery and the Green Gallery in New York. The following year he made his first free-standing, colored sculptures from plywood boards with metal struts. From this time on the Bladen dedicated himself exclusively to sculpture.
In 1964, he showed his first sculpture, White Z, at an exhibition in the Park Place Gallery in New York and got to know the sculptures, Connie Reyes, who later became his companion. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts by the National Endowment of the Arts. The first works include also Rambler, 1963/1964, and the Rockers, 1965, which Bladen understood as the artistic basis for all his further sculptures.
From 1956 on, Bladen enjoyed the growing attention of the New York art scene and beyond, so that subsequently he was represented with his austere sculptures, developed from geometric forms, at many famous exhibitions. His artistic stance, influenced by European Constructivism, American Hard-Edge Painting, and sculptures such as Isamu Noguchi and David Smith, in turn, had stimulating effect on a circle of younger artists including Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt and Lawrence Weiner, who repeatedly called him the ‘father figure’ of Minimal Art.
In 1966, he showed a tripartite work made the previous year, Three Elements, at the exhibition, Primary Structures Younger American and British Artists, in the Jewish Museum in New York. This exhibition was very important for Minimal Art because it enabled a broader public to become acquainted with this new art movement for the first time. Together with other artists represented there, such as Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol Le Witt, Walter De Maria, Robert Morris, Tony Smith and Robert Smithson, since then Bladen has been assigned to this group working with an elementary frugality of forms, even though his conception, aiming at whole and the expressive power of the individual work, is distinguished from the serial and consistently matter-of-fact manner of artistic shaping and forming pursued by most of the other artists. This holds in a similar way for his sculptor- friends, Robert Grosvenor.
In 1967, at the Scale as Content exhibition in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, which brought together exclusively large sculptures by Bladen, Newman and Tony Smith, he showed his monumental sculpture, The X. set up in the hall, in the immediate neighborhood of Barnett Newman’s Broken Obelisk, which was positioned outside.
Bladen had his first solo exhibition as a sculptor in Hempstead, New York state, and was represented at a series of further groups exhibitions including also the show, American Sculptures of the Sixties, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Articles appeared in several periodicals on his work, his position within contemporary sculpture along with extended interviews with him. On the basis of this positive resonance and associated purchases, Bladen was now able to devote himself exclusively to art. On the side, he taught at Hunter College in New York. Black Triangles arose between 1966 and 1967.
In 1968, Bladen was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, was represented at documenta 4 in Kassel, and was among the circle of artists presented to a European art public under the title, Minimal Art, West Berlin. He created Barricadeand a second version of Rockers, followed by Untitled (Curve) in 1969, Coltrane on 1970 and Boomerang in 1972.
At the beginning of the 1960s interest was growing in the United States in sculptures in public spaces. This turns toward ‘landmark signs’ and the clear, strongly expressive tectonics of Bladen’s works led him to receive numerous commissions from 1967 on. Thus The Cathedral Evening came about in 1969 for the Albany (New York), Vroom Sh-Sh-Sh in 1974 for Buffalo (New York), and Raiko I in 1975 for Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf.
Since the mid-1960’s, Bladen’s works were represented by the Fischback Gallery in New York, Through its gallery director, Aladar Marberer, in 1973, he got to know the younger artist Bill Jenson, with whom he had a close friendship from then on. From 1974 to 1976, Bladen taught ass a guest lecturer at Columbia University in New York and was awarded the Mark Rothko Fellowship in 1975.
1976 – 1988
In 1976, Bladen was appointed teacher at the Parsons School of Fine Art, a post he held until 1978. An exchange with students gained generally in importance for him. He, therefore, accepted further teaching jobs, such as Artist in Residence in 1981/1982 at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Maine), and in 1982.1983 as a guest lecturer at Yale University in New Haven (Connecticut). In 1977, he was once again awarded the National Endowment of the Arts.
Bladen was mostly occupied with commissions which, since the 1970s, were often accompanied by preparatory models. Thus, in 1976, he created Cosmic Seed for Des Moines (Iowa), 1977, he created Kama Sutra for Central Park in New York, 1978 Oracle’s Vision for Springfield (Ohio), Black Lightning 1981 for Seattle and the campus of King Faisal University in Riyadh as well as Host of the Ellipse for Baltimore (Maryland). From 1985 on, the sculptor, Larry Deyab, assisted him in his work.
At the beginning of 1988, as recognition for his services to the summer academy in Skowhegan, Bladen was awarded the Skowhegan Trustees & Governor Award for Service to the Arts.
On February 1988, Ronald Bladen died in New York of cancer.
RONALD BLADEN SCULPTURE
RONALD BLADEN EXHIBITIONS
Solo exhibitions
1946
Ronald Bladen, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, January 22-February 10.
1951
Raymond & Raymond, San Francisco, fall.
1953
Six Gallery, San Francisco.
1954
Kelly Gallery, Vancouver, October (two weeks).
1956
Paintings by Ronald Bladen, Fine Arts Gallery, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, October 23-November 17.
Six Gallery, San Francisco.
1958
Ronald Bladen, Brata Gallery, New York, May 9-30.
1960
Ronald Bladen, Brata Gallery, New York, March 11-31.
1962/1963
Ronald Bladen, Green Gallery, New York, December 11, 1962-January 5, 1963.
1967
Ronald Bladen, Fischbach Gallery, New York, January 3-21.
Ronald Bladen: Sculpture, Emily Lowe Gallery, Hofstra University, Hempstead, February 21-March 23; In association with the Fischbach Gallery, New York.
1970
Ronald Bladen: A New Work, Fischbach Gallery, New York, January 3-21.
1971
Ronald Bladen: New Work, Fischbach Gallery, New York, April 10-28.
1972
Ronald Bladen: A Sculpture, Fischbach Gallery, New York, January 8-27.
Ronald Bladen, Fischbach Gallery, New York, opened on November 4.
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena.
Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia.
1977/1978
Ronald Bladen: Outdoor Sculpture Proposals, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, November 19, 1977-January 31, 1978; In conjunction with the Public Arts Council of the Municipal Art Society, New York, Westchester County Department of Parks, New Rochelle, and Department of Parks and Recreation of the City of New York, New York.
1980
Ronald Bladen: Models & Drawings, Hamilton Gallery, New York, May 10-June 7.
1986
Ronald Bladen, Drawings & Wood and Aluminum Wall Sculpture, Washburn Gallery, New York, January 8-February 22.
1987
Ronald Bladen: “The Wall Sculptures”, CompassRose Gallery, Chicago, May 1-June 15.
1988
Ronald Bladen: Recent Sculpture, Washburn Gallery, New York, February 10-March 19.
1989
Ronald Bladen: The 1950s, Washburn Gallery, New York, February 7-March 12.
1990
Ronald Bladen. Paintings and Sculpture, Washburn Gallery, New York, March 7-April 7.
Ronald Bladen: Abstract Expressionist Paintings of the Late 1950s, CompassRose Gallery, Chicago, October 12-November 2.
1991/1992
Ronald Bladen: Early and Late, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, May 30, 1991-August 18, 1991; Vancouver Art Museum, Vancouver, February 8, 1992-April 13, 1992.
1992
Washburn Gallery, New York.
1995/1996
Ronald Bladen: Drawings and Sculptural Models, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro; Sculpture Center, Long Island City.
1998
Ronald Bladen Sculpture, Bielefeld Art Gallery, Bielefeld, June 7-September 6.
1999
Ronald Bladen: Selected Works, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, February 7-May 30.
2004
Ronald Bladen: From Expressionism to Minimalism, Selby Gallery, Ringling School of Art and Design, Sarasota, October 29-November 27.
Ronald Bladen: Paintings from the Fifties, Danese Gallery, New York, October 29- November 27.
2007
Ronald Bladen – Skulptur. Werke der Sammlung Marzona, Berlin State Museums, New National Gallery, Berlin, March 22-May 6.
2008
Ronald Bladen: Sculpture of the 1960s & 1970s, Jacobson Howard Gallery, New York, October 16-November 26, 2008.
2011
Ronald Bladen, Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, ????, 2011.
2012
Ronald Bladen Painting 1955-1962, Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, April 19-May 25, 2012.
2008
Ronald Bladen: Sculpture of the 1960s & 1970s, Jacobson Howard Gallery, New York, NY, October 16–November 26
2011
Ronald Bladen: Large Scale Sculpture, Loretta Howard
Gallery, New York, NY, February 17–April 2
2012
Ronald Bladen in Context, Ronald Bladen: New York Paintings
1955–1962, Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, NY
April 19–May 25, 2012
ANGLE/EDGE/PLANE: The Sculpture of Ronald Bladen
The Ewing Gallery of Art + Architecture, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN
September 2019
Group exhibitions
Exhibition titles appearing in brackets represent descriptive titles for which official documentation is unavailable.
1944
Sixty-Fourth Annual Exhibition, Oil, Tempera on Panel and Sculpture, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, September 21-October 15.
1945
Paintings by Bernard Bolter and Ronald Bladen, Reid Hyde, Hand Weaving, San Francisco.
1946
Sixty-Sixth Annual Exhibition, Oil, Tempera and Sculpture, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, October 10-November 3.
1950
[Lucille Austen, Ronald Bladen, Henry Dietrich, and Eileen Reynolds], Raymond & Raymond, San Francisco, July 6-31.
1955
Invitational Group Show, Six Gallery, San Francisco, April-May.
University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
1958
Brata Gallery, New York.
1959
[Sylvia Stone and Ronald Bladen], Brata Gallery, New York.
1960
New Forms – New Media I, Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, October.
1961
Mark di Suvero and Ronald Bladen, Green Gallery, New York, summer.
Ronald Bladen and Sylvia Stone, Brata Gallery, New York, September.
1963
Paintings, Drawings and Prints owned by Local Collectors, Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts, Delaware Art Center, Wilmington.
1964
Invitational Show, Park Place Gallery, New York.
1965
Concrete Expressionism, Loeb Student Center, New York University, New York, April 6-29.
Sculpture from All Directions, World House Gallery, New York, November 3-17.
1966
Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors, Jewish Museum, New York, April 27-June 12.
68th American Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, August 19-October 16.
1966/1967
Annual Exhibition 1966: Contemporary American Sculpture and Prints, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, December 16, 1966-February 5, 1967.
1967
Bladen, Grosvenor, von Schlegell, Loeb Student Center, New York University, New York, February 6-March 5.
Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture from New York Galleries, Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts, Delaware Art Center, Wilmington, February-March.
American Sculpture of the Sixties, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, April 28-June 25; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, September 15-October 29.
Sculpture ’67, City Hall, Toronto, June 1-July 17; Organized by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Outdoor Show, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Projects for Macrostructures, Richard Feign Gallery, New York.
Rejective Art, University of Omaha, Fine Arts Festival, Omaha.
Scale Models/Drawings, Dwan Gallery, New York.
Sculpture and Architecture, School of Visual Arts, New York.
Serielle Formationen, Studio Gallery, J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt.
Structural Art, American Federation of Arts, New York; Touring exhibition.
1967/1968
Scale as Content: Ronald Bladen, Barnett Newman, Tony Smith, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., October 7, 1967-January 7, 1968.
Fifth Guggenheim International Exhibition, 1967: Sculpture from Twenty Nations, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, October 20, 1967-February 4, 1968.
1968
4 documenta: Kassel ‘68, Fridericianum Museum, New Gallery, and Orangerie Auepark, Kassel, June 27-October 6.
1968/1969
Minimal Art. (Andre, Bladen, Flavin, Grosvenor, Judd, LeWitt, Morris, Smith, Smithson, Steiner), Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, March 23, 1968-May 26, 1968; Art Association of the Rhineland and Westphalia, Düsseldorf, January 17, 1969-February 23, 1969; Academy of the Arts, Berlin Annual Exhibition, Berlin (West), March 23, 1969-April 24, 1969.
Annual Exhibition 1968, Contemporary American Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, December 17, 1968-January 19, 1969.
1969
14 Sculptors: The Industrial Edge, Dayton’s 8th Floor Auditorium, Minneapolis, May 29-June 21; Organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
1970
Ronald Bladen/Robert Murray, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, March 10-April 5.
American Sculpture, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, September 11-November 15.
Inaugural Exhibit, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati.
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.
1971
Sonsbeek ’71, Sonsbeek Park, Arnheim, June 19-August 15.
1972
Visiting Artists: Ronald Bladen and Allan d’Arcangelo, Elvehjem Art Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, March 31-April 30.
American Drawings, Art Collection, Amsterdam; Annemarie Verna Gallery, Zürich.
1973
1973 Biennial Exhibition: Contemporary American Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, January 10-March 18.
Works in Spaces: Stephen Antonakos, Ronald Bladen, Sam Gilliam, Robert Irwin,
Dorothea Rockburn, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, February 9-April 8.
Art in Space: Some Turning Points, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, May 16-June 24.
[The City is for People], Fine Arts Gallery, San Diego.
1974
Less is More: The Influence of the Bauhaus on American Art, Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Coral Gables, February 7-March 10; New York Cultural Center, New York.
[Competition Exhibition], Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach.
Outdoor Sculpture 1974, Merriewold West Gallery, Far Hills.
1975
Monumental Sculpture in the 1970’s for Civic, Private, and Corporate Places, Janie C. Lee Gallery, Houston, February 1-March 15.
Ronald Bladen, Ernest Briggs, Judy Rifka, Stuart Shedletsky, Susan Caldwell Gallery, New York, April 12-30.
Collectors of the Seventies, Part 1: Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, Clocktower, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, April 19-May 17.
Contemporary Drawing, Ben Shahn Gallery, William Paterson University of New Jersey, Wayne.
New York Cultural Center, New York.
1975/1976
The Martha Jackson Collection at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, November 21, 1975-January 4, 1976.
1976
200 Years of American Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 16-September 26.
The Golden Door: Artist-Immigrants of America, 1876-1976, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., May 20-October 20.
Rooms, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, June 9-26.
PARC Exhibit, Graduate Center Mall, City University of New York, New York.
1977
Project: New Urban Movements, Akron Art Institute, Akron, May 1-June 19.
Marquette for Large Sculpture, Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York.
Sculptor’s Drawings, John Weber Gallery, New York.
1978
Drawings, Touchstone Gallery, New York.
In Small Scale, Hamilton Gallery, New York.
1979
A Great Big Drawing Show, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, February 11-April 1.
Sculpture: Bladen, Kipp, Witkin, Ben Shahn Gallery, William Patterson University of New Jersey, Wayne, October 10-November 13.
Contemporary Sculpture: Selections from the Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
The Minimal Tradition, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield.
1980
10 Abstract Sculptures: American and European, 1940-1980, Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York, March 18-April 19.
Arte Americana Contemporanea, Civic Museums and Galleries of History and Art, Udine.
Hamilton Gallery, New York.
International Sculpture Conference, Washington, D.C.
1981
The Modern Room, Emily Carr Gallery of the Provincial Archives of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Ronald Bladen, Michael Goldberg, Vincent Longo, Adam L. Gimbel Gallery, New York.
1982
CAPS Benefit Show, New York.
Sculpture Now: Contemporary American Sculpture, Park West Gallery, Southfield.
Skowhegan Faculty Show, Colby College, Waterville.
1983
Beyond the Plane: American Constructions, 1930-1965, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, October 29-December 31.
Artist Call, Leo Castelli Gallery, New York.
Museum of Drawers, traveling exhibit to Europe, Israel, and the United States.
1983/1984
Sculpture: The Tradition in Steel, Nassau County Museum of Fine Art, Roslyn Harbor, October 9, 1983-January 22, 1984.
1984
Contemporary Painting, Sculpture, Drawing V., Oil and Steel Gallery, New York, September 18-November 3.
Drawings by Sculptors, Collection of John E. Seagram and Sons, Inc., New York; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal.
The Ways of Wood, Queens College, New York.
1985
Matter and Spirit, Suzanne Lemberg Usdan Gallery, Bennington College, Bennington, October 1-24.
Ontogeny: Sculpture and Painting by 20th Century American Sculptors, New York Studio School, New York, November 20-December 19.
50 at 50 West, 50 West Gallery, New York.
Action Precision, Washburn Gallery, New York.
Preview and Review – Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures, Washburn Gallery, New York.
1986
Sculpture: Ronald Bladen, Jim Clark, Judy Pfaff, Connie Reyes, Sorkin Gallery, New York, October 3-November 1.
Contemporary Artists. Bladen, Bluhm, Cote, Jensen, Nivola, Youngerman, Washburn Gallery, New York, December 3-23.
The Metaphysical Landscape, Robeson Center Gallery, Newark.
1986/1987
Sculpture on the Wall, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, December 6, 1986-February 15, 1987.
1987
In Scale and Time: Ronald Bladen, Ilya Bolotowsky, Norman Bluhm, Alan Cote, Bill Jensen, Washburn Gallery, New York, September 2-26.
Sculpture, Procter Art Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, October 15-November 18.
1987/1988
Works on Paper by Twenty-two American Artists, Beijing Art Institute, Peking, November 20-30, 1987; Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, December 10-20, 1987; Hong Kong Arts Festival, Hong Kong, January 14-30, 1988; Snug Harbor Cultural Center, New York, October 29, 1988-December 14, 1988.
Group Exhibition, Saint Peter’s Church, New York.
1988
Past/Present, Washburn Gallery, New York, September 6-October 1.
Envoys, New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, New York, November 18-December 16.
1989
Past/Present, Washburn Gallery, New York, September.
1990
Works on Paper. Bladen, Jensen, Mason, Ryan, Smith, Washburn Gallery, New York, February 1-March 3.
Concept Art, Minimal Art, Arte Povera, Land Art: Sammlung Marzona, Bielefeld Art Gallery, Bielefeld, February 18-April 8.
1991
Circa 1960, Washburn Gallery, New York, January 23-February 23.
Lyrical Vision – The 6 Gallery, 1954-1957, Natsoulas Novelozo Gallery, Davis, January-February.
Past/Present, Washburn Gallery, New York.
1993
Fantastic Wanderings, Connecticut College, New London, October 9-November 10.
1995
Die Sammlung Marzona. Arte Povera, Minimal Art, Concept Art, Land Art, Museum of Modern Art, Ludwig Foundation, Vienna, June 14-September 17.
Egidio Marzona Collection, Palais Liechtenstein, Vienna.
1995/1996
Beat Culture and the New America: 1950-1965, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, November 1995-February 1996; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, June 2, 1996-September 15, 1996; M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, October 5, 1996-December 29, 1996.
1996
The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism, Laguna Art Museum, Los Angeles, January 27-April 21; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco.
Ronald Bladen. Nancy Haynes. Olivier Mosset., John Gibson Gallery, New York, March 16-April 13.
Sculptures and Drawings, Rosenberg & Kaufman Fine Art Gallery, New York.
1997
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.
Power of Abstraction, Eighth Floor Gallery, New York.
Ronald Bladen, Edward Dugmore – Paintings, Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York.
Sculptures and Drawings, Rosenberg & Kaufman Fine Art Gallery, New York.
1998
Abstracted Presence, Edward Thorpe Gallery, New York.
Sculptors’ Draw, Rosenberg & Kaufman Fine Art Gallery, New York.
2000
„Kontrapunkt”, Werke von Nam June Paik und Ronald Bladen, RWE Tower, Essen, January 17-March 19.
2000/2001
(E così via) (And so on). 99 artists from the Marzona Collection, Municipal Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rome, February 20, 2000-September 17, 2000; Kunstverein Ludwigsburg, Ludwigsburg, March 18, 2001-April 29, 2001.
2001
Marzona Villa Manin. Una collezione d’arte. A private collection. Die Sammlung Marzona, Villa Manin of Passariano, Codroipo, June 9-August 26.
Art Works. Sammlung Marzona. Kunst um 1968, Bielefeld Art Gallery, Bielefeld, June 17-August 19.
2001/2002
Probation Area: Versuchsfeld. Sammlung Marzona, State Museums of Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum for Gegenwart, Berlin, November 29, 2001-July 21, 2002.
2004
A Minimal Future? Art as Object. 1958-1968, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Los Angeles, March 28-July 26.
2005
Sculpture, Danese Gallery, New York.
2006
Galerie mit Bleistift Fischer – Papierarbeiten aus den 60er und 70er Jahren, Konrad Fischer Gallery, Düsseldorf, May 6-June 17.
2006/2007
Surface Matter: Collage from the Collection, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, November 17, 2006-February 11, 2007.
2007
Based on Paper. Die Sammlung Marzona. Revolution der Kunst 1960-1975, State Museums of Berlin, Museum of Prints and Drawings and Art Library, Berlin, March 21-July 15.
2008
Turning Point: The Demise of Modernism and Rebirth of Meaning in American Art, Museum of Art, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, July 17, 2008– January 9, 2009
2010
Artists at Max’s Kansas City, 1965–1974: Hetero-Holics and Some Women Too, Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, NY, September 15–October 30
2013
Works from the 1970s, Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles, CA
2014
An Opening of the Field: Jess, Robert Duncan, and Their Circle, Grey Art Gallery, New York, NY, January 14– March 29 Out of 10th Street and Into the 60s, Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, NY, September 4–October 11
2015
Where Sculpture & Dance Meet: Minimalism from 1961–1979, Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, NY, September 1– November 7
2017-18
Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965, traveling exhibition: Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, NY, January 10–December 8, 2017; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland, September 28–November 25, 2018
Expanding Space: Ronald Bladen, Al Held, Yvonne Rainer, George Sugarman: Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, NY, November 2–December 21, 2017.
