Larry Bell (b.1939) is one of the most renowned and influential artists to emerge from the Los Angeles art scene of the 1960s. Often regarded as a pioneer in the California Light & Space movement. Known foremost for his refined surface treatment of glass and explorations of light, reflection and shadow through the material, Bell’s significant oeuvre extends from painting and works on paper to glass sculptures and furniture design. Bell’s understanding of the potential of glass and light allows him to expand visual and physical fields of perception, and his sculptures to surpass traditional bounds of the medium. He has said: ‘Although we tend to think of glass as a window, it is a solid liquid that has at once three distinctive qualities: it reflects light, it absorbs light, and it transmits light all at the same time.’ Bell’s use of commercial industrial processes in his studio, located in Venice, California since the 1960s and Taos, New Mexico since the 1970s, demonstrates his unparalleled skill and dedication in each step of his sculptures’ fabrication. Since 1969, his studio has managed its own high-vacuum coating system that allows him to deposit thin metal films onto his glass surfaces, harnessing a little known technique developed for aeronautics to create an unprecedented body of work. Larry Bell’s Untitled is a superb realization of the artist’s most celebrated and historically significant body of work: the coated-glass cube. Conceived in 1967, at the height of the Light and Space movement in Southern California, the work originates from glass panels coated by Bell during that formative period using his pioneering vapor-deposition process, bringing to completion an idea whose origins lie in one of the most innovative moments of postwar American art. The result transforms Untitled into a simple geometric form into a constantly shifting perceptual experience, appearing alternately transparent and opaque, material and immaterial, as light, reflection, and the viewer’s movement activate its luminous planes. Few artists have so elegantly dissolved the boundary between object and atmosphere. Bell’s cubes are recognized among the defining sculptural achievements of their era and reside in the collections of the world’s foremost museums. Untitled stands as a quintessential example of this iconic series, uniting historical significance, technical innovation, and enduring visual refinement.

Works

Untitled
Untitled
1967

Fairs

The Armory Show
Javits Center 655 W 34th Street
September 24 - September 27, 2026
Booth 202
The Armory Show

Public Collections

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Musée Saint-Pierre Art Contemporain, Lyon
Musée d’Art Contemporain, Lyon
Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach
Museum Ludwig, Cologne
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Stedelijk Museum, Rotterdam
Tate Gallery, London
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
Anderson Collection at Stanford University, Stanford
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Aspen Art Museum, Aspen
City of Albuquerque Public Arts, Albuquerque
Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu
Corning Museum of Glass, Corning
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas
Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Fort Worth Art Center, Fort Worth
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Harwood Museum of Art, Taos
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
The Menil Collection, Houston
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Museum of Modern Art, New York
National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.
National Institutes of Health, Bethesda
North Carolina State University, Raleigh
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena
Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland
Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell
San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale
Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa
University of Arizona, Tucson
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
Denver Art Museum, Denver
Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe
The Archer M. Huntington Gallery, Austin
Australian National Gallery, Canberra
The Berardo Collection, Funchal
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs
Federal Reserve Bank, Boston
Valley Bank of Nevada, Reno