Abe Ajay, Polychrome Wood Relief #A67, 1967

Abe Ajay builds a world in miniature — primary colors, colliding planes, and a red dot that stops everything cold.

ARTIST: Abe Ajay (American, 1919–1998)

PERIOD: 20th Century, 1967

CATEGORY: Sculpture / Wall Relief

MATERIALS: Acrylic on wood, shadow box frame

DIMENSIONS: 12¼ h × 24 w in. (31 × 61 cm)

INSCRIBED: Impressed signature and date to lower right, 'Ajay 67'

CONTEXT: A self-proclaimed "unrepentant object maker," Ajay combined found objects, polyester resin, wood, canvas and wire into his mixed media constructions — works that drew frequent comparisons to Louise Nevelson, though the New York Times noted his sculpture was "as masculine and puritanical as hers is feminine and baroque." Art historian Irving Sandler suggested the works possess "a thoughtfully conceived structure and the fine workmanship of Russian Constructivism," with compositions revealing an abstract and imagined architecture influenced by Spanish and Middle Eastern culture. This relief, dated to 1967 — the height of Ajay's mature period — deploys white, red, yellow, dark green, and cerulean blue across a complex field of interlocking planes and cast shadows, the whole anchored by a single red circle that functions almost as punctuation. The construction is substantial in every sense: heavily built, precisely engineered, and finished with the exacting hand of an artist who came up through graphic design and never lost his commitment to craft. Ajay's work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.