by Liz Daube
Staff Writer
At 9.5 feet high and 60 feet long, Al Held’s last painting is impressive in its scope. Visitors to the painting’s home in the new Main Library might never guess the painting is actually incomplete – just one part of a four-piece project left unfinished when the abstract artist died in July of 2005.
“What’s fascinating about this work is the library now holds the last commissioned piece ever completed by Al Held,” said Amy Crane, deputy director of the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville, the group that selected Held for the project. “He was really intrigued about doing this project in Jacksonville because of the scale ... and he did it for less than usual because he wanted to be able to have that very large space to work with.”
The Jacksonville Public Library Foundation used private funds to raise the $550,000 paid to Held for the four-piece public art project, which would have decorated all four walls of the main branch’s Grand Reading Room. The completed portion of the painting was installed 25 feet above the room’s floor in January.
The money left over after paying Held’s estate and installing the painting – $359,963 – will soon be returned to the Library Foundation. The City Council Finance Committee passed an ordinance “de-appropriating” the money Monday, and it currently awaits full Council approval.
The return of funds is “something of a rarity” for the City, according to Finance Chair Kevin Hyde. The Library Foundation could not be reached for comment and a library spokeswoman was unaware of any specific plans for the money.
Held was, according to British newspaper The Guardian, an “American painter who found his voice in hard edge abstraction.” His work is collected in prominent museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).
Held moved through several phases during his 50-plus years of painting, and taught art at Yale University for 18 years. Near the end of his life, he made commissions of up to $1 million for his art and completed a mural for the New York City subway system.
The artist was 76 when he was found dead in his home in Italy.