Twelve Blacks and Four Silvers

1965

© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2019

License this image

Op Art In Focus

Artist: Jesus Rafael Soto 1923–2005
Original title: 12 noirs et 4 argentés
Medium: Wood and metal
Dimensions: Object: 1060 x 1060 x 162 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Transferred from the Victoria & Albert Museum 1983
Reference: T03769

Catalogue entry

T03769 Twelve Blacks and Four Silvereds 1965

Construction of wood and metal, painted 41 3/4 × 41 3/4 × 6 3/8 (1060 × 1060 × 162)

Inscribed on reverse ‘HAUT Soto 1985’
Transferred from the Victoria and Albert Museum 1983

Prov: Purchased by the Department of Circulation, Victoria and Albert Museum, from Signals London, 1966 (Circ.38–1966)
Exh: The Achievements of Jésus-Raphael Soto: 1950–65, Fifteen Years of Vibrations, Signals London, October–December 1965 (as ‘Grand Relation - Vibration with 4 silver plaques and 12 black plaques’); travelling exhibitions of the Department of Circulation, Victoria and Albert Museum
Repr: Signals, 1, November–December 1965, p.17

The original title of this relief is ‘12 noirs et 4 argentés’. It is similar to the Tate Gallery's ‘Relationships of Contrasting Elements’, 1965 (T 00806) which is on the same scale, but larger overall since it has two more rows of plaques. Soto began to make these reliefs in 1964–5, and a number of other versions are listed in Ronald Alley, The Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art, 1981, p.698.

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1982-84: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1986