The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 20, 2025

Blue Rational/Irrational (left panel)

1969

Al Loving

(American, 1935–2005)
America
Acrylic on canvas
Gift of the KeyBank Collection 2019.58.a
© The Estate of Al Loving and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York
Location: 224A Contemporary Corridor

Did You Know?

This was included in Al Loving: Paintings (1969) at the Whitney Museum, the museum’s first solo exhibition of work by an African American artist.

Description

Across both canvases of this large-scale diptych, Loving evokes a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface through strategic layerings of cubic forms and carefully calibrated color juxtapositions. Around the time Loving made this work he wrote, “I am tired of objects on walls. The wall must be pierced, brought forward, pushed back.” Blue Rational/Irrational is a bold manifestation of this sentiment.
  • 1969-?
    Collection of the artist
    early 1990s-2019
    (KeyBank Collection, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)
    2019-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Contemporary Installation. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer).
    Alvin Loving: Paintings. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (December 19, 1969–January 25, 1970).
  • {{cite web|title=Blue Rational/Irrational (left panel)|url=false|author=Al Loving|year=1969|access-date=20 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2019.58.a