The Upside Down Reinhardt

Sandy Kinnee
January 2021

© Estate of Ad Reinhardt / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, NY

College students and people who hang out in bars consider the Guinness Book of Records an invaluable reference. I was curious about its veracity.  I looked under “ART” and saw they had missed the boat in two categories.

The first heading in error concerned
“paintings accidentally hung upside down”.

If I recall they had a Francis Bacon painting listed as claiming the title.

The unpublished record may be claimed by Ad Reinhardt’s painting hung upside down in the Allen Memorial Art Museum, beginning sometime between 1967 and August of 1972, ending in 1976.

This mistake was discovered only when I removed the painting for the renovation of the gallery, in 1976.   1972 is the year I came to work in the museum, as museum technician. It was already upside down when I arrived. Reinhardt had indicated the proper orientation on the back of the canvas.That the work is geometric and abstract should not overshadow the artist’s intention.

I suspect the Reinhardt was hanging upside down for nine years.

That certainly beats the length of time one of my artworks was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, between a Rauschenberg and a Dine, face to the wall.

Face to the Wall

Here is a category that was probably never even considered by the Guinness Book of Records: “Artworks hung face to the wall.” Thank you very much for allowing me to hold this distinction.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York organized an exhibition of works on handmade paper in 1976. Kathy Markel, my New York gallerist, called to tell me she was loaning a piece of mine to the exhibition. I was too busy with the Venturi renovation and addition to the Allen Art Museum, at Oberlin College, to go see the show until toward the end.  A friend who often helped me in the studio, Walter Bosstick, was in New York about a month after the exhibition opened and reported back to me the following: “The piece they are showing is beautiful.  It is displayed between a Jim Dine and a Robert Rauschenberg. But, you know, I thought I knew all your work and this one is very subtle.”

I asked him to describe it, since I did not know which piece was selected.  He did and I was really puzzled. It did not sound like my work!  So, I asked how, other than by the label, he knew it was my work? “It has your signature right on it.”

I was on the phone to MoMA as fast as I could dial.  I explained to the curator that I signed my work on the back.

By the time I arrived in New York the piece was properly presented. It had even been purchased by an art critic. My question is: Which side did she pay for?

I ran into her a couple of years later and asked.
Her response: “Which do you think?”