Moment
- Artist: Barnett Newman
- Date: 1946
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 762 x 406 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is “Moment” by Barnett Newman, painted in 1946. It’s one of the first times Newman added a bold, pale yellow vertical strip he called a “zip.” The strip slices the canvas in half, creating a dramatic contrast with the swirling background of browns, greens, greys and whites. He set the strip with masking tape, then layered the rest of the canvas in fluid, almost gestural washes, giving the piece a sense of spontaneous energy that was key to the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and ’50s.
Newman said the title refers to the instant of creation, a fleeting moment where colour and space combine to confront the pre‑cosmic chaos he imagined. It’s a precursor to his later, more famous work Onement I, where the zip becomes a central motif. The painting was presented to a museum in 1988 by Mrs Annalee Newman, the artist’s widow, and has been shown in major retrospectives since its first exhibition after Newman's death in 1970. It remains a striking, spiritual snapshot of a moment that continues to resonate.
See it in person
Moment is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
