About Paragraph with Diagonal, 1963.
In 1963, while already very much thinking of "compositions," I was still finding viable painting ideas in the "paragraph" paintings. In this work, I made an animating diagonal wash to create a second (blurred) focus. The image of handwriting in my calligraphic paintings is not something I copied from an existing script; the drawing was an active part of making the work, whether with pen on paper, as here, or with brush on canvas. (George Deem, letter to Franklin Sirmans, The Menil Collection, Houston, January 2, 2008)
