Before he transitioned to work in three dimensions, Donald Judd (b. 1928, Excelsior Springs, MO, d. 1994, New York) began as a painter and an art critic, having studied philosophy and art history at Columbia University and painting at the Art Students League. In 1977, Judd established the ideas for the Judd Foundation and in 1986 he founded the Chinati Foundation/La Fundación Chinati. For almost four decades, Judd exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia with his work in museum collections worldwide including Kunstmuseum Basel; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Tate Gallery, London; and Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, among many others. Major exhibitions of his work include the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1968, 1988); the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1975); Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (1970, 1987–88); Tate Modern, London (2004); and The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2020-2021).