Born in Marshalltown, Iowa in 1937, Thor Rinden worked for four decades in the privacy of his Brooklyn, NY studio, producing luminous and profound paintings on canvas, wood and paper. Many of Rinden’s most original works are “wovens,” that is, works in which the artist wove colorful, interlocking strips of canvas into patterned designs, anchoring them to stretcher frames; and “slab paintings,” in which smaller, meticulously constructed canvas frames are embedded into larger ones. Prolific in his solitude, Rinden created a body of extraordinarily beautiful work which brilliantly combines his Iowa roots (with its plotted farmland and geometric quilts) with the traditions of New York abstraction of the 1970’s and 1980’s

While Rinden never pursued representation by a commercial dealer, his work appeared in a number of group shows, and is part of the permanent collection of the Oklahoma City Museum of Art and The Brooklyn Public Library, as well as museums at Smith College, University of Southern California, Randolph College, Drexel University, the University of Iowa, Southern Connecticut State College, and Oxford University in Oxford, UK. It is also held in many private collections, including that of the New York developer John Zuccotti, an early and ongoing admirer of the artist’s work.

With his wife, Jane, an English teacher, Rinden thoroughly renovated their home in Brooklyn, a project which attracted significant media attention. The Rindens combined their creativity and resourcefulness with years of hands-on labor, and documented each step in a charming set of visual journals.

Thor Rinden, Geometric Abstract Artist (1937-2009), A Brief Biography. https://thorrinden.com/about