Robert Ryman (b. 1930, Nashville, Tennessee), was an American artist known for his monochrome paintings, minimalism, and conceptual art, particularly his masterful use of white paint. Ryman described his art as an attempt to "paint the paint." His work operated on what he believed is painting's ability to be about its own activity, and in this way painting was, for Ryman, a meditation on itself. His use of white paint is tactile, using different textures, brushes, and playing with layering, creating dimension in his minimalist work.
Ryman’s work has been shown in collections at the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Centre Pompidou, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Moderna Museet, the Stedelijk Museum, and the Tate, among many other institutions.