A Painting's Title Is Part Of The Work
In short: German painter Markus Linnenbrink titles his current New York show "WAITINGFORTHELIGHTTOCHANGE," and gives individual paintings full run-on sentences instead of names — "LULLABYOFTHEABYSS," "VISIONANDTELEVISION." That's not a gimmick. Why abstract paintings have unusual titles comes down to a real, documented artistic argument: a title is part of how a painting is read, not an afterthought stapled on after the paint dries. Some painters lean into that. Others, like Clyfford Still, refused titles altogether for the same reason.
Angela Simeone is a Nashville-based contemporary abstract painter whose boutique luxury wallpaper line is created from her own paintings and composed — through her artistic and editorial eye — into layered, original, chic patterns, printed on a single luxurious 20 oz vinyl that looks like raw silk with a glimmering sheen, sold direct and to the trade.
Why Give A Painting A Full Sentence For A Title?
Markus Linnenbrink's current exhibition at Miles McEnery Gallery, on view June 25 through August 14, 2026, carries his signature style: paintings titled like fragments of overheard speech rather than descriptions of what's on the canvas. Art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto spent a career arguing that this isn't decorative. As he put it, "if interpretations are what constitute works, then there are no works without them, and works are misconstituted when interpretation is wrong." A title is one of the first interpretations a viewer receives — before they've spent thirty seconds in front of the paint itself. Linnenbrink's poetic titles don't explain his poured-resin color fields. They set a mood a viewer carries into the looking.
What Happens When A Painter Refuses To Title At All?
The opposite approach makes the same point from the other direction. Clyfford Still stopped titling his paintings after 1947, replacing names with dates and catalogue numbers instead. His own explanation: "As before, the pictures are to be without titles of any kind. I want no allusions to interfere with or assist the spectator. Before them I want him to be on his own." Still didn't think titles were neutral — he thought they were so powerful he had to remove them entirely to protect the viewer's own encounter with the paint. Marcel Duchamp reached a similar conclusion from the opposite direction, describing a title as an "invisible color" on a work — something that shapes perception even though it can't be seen.
Does A Title Change What A Viewer Actually Sees?
Georgia O'Keeffe lived this argument the hard way. Critics spent decades reading her flower paintings as coded statements about female sexuality, an interpretation she rejected outright: "you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower... and I don't." She'd painted flowers large enough that a busy viewer would finally slow down and look — and the title "flower" was enough, on its own, to invite a whole reading she never intended. Susan Sontag made the broader case in her 1964 essay "Against Interpretation": "In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art" — meaning, experience a painting before you explain it. John Berger opened "Ways of Seeing" with the same warning: "The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled." A title is one of the strongest things we think we "know" walking up to a painting — which is exactly why a painter's choice of title, or refusal to give one, is never a small decision.
How I Title My Own Work
I don't give my paintings literal, descriptive titles for the same reason Still refused them and Linnenbrink writes his as fragments: a title that names the "subject" of a non-representational painting closes down a reading that the painting itself is built to keep open. A scraped-back, layered surface built from walnut stain and oil pigment isn't "about" one thing, and a flat descriptive title would flatten it into one. When you're looking at any abstract painting — mine or anyone else's — the title is worth a second look. It's not a caption. It's the first brushstroke of interpretation the painter hands you before you've looked at any of the real ones.
Browse the current paintings available now, or start a conversation about a commission built around your own room from the ground up.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do some abstract paintings have strange, poetic, or run-on titles?
The title shapes how a viewer reads a non-representational painting before they've spent real time with the paint itself, so many painters choose titles deliberately, rather than defaulting to a literal description.
Why did some painters, like Clyfford Still, refuse to title their work at all?
Still believed any title, even a poetic one, would steer a viewer's interpretation, so he replaced titles with numbers and dates to leave the encounter fully open.
Does a painting's title tell me what it's "about"?
Not necessarily, and often deliberately not. A title on an abstract painting is closer to a mood or a frame than a caption explaining the content.
Should I read the title before or after I look at an abstract painting?
Try both. Looking first lets you form your own read; the title afterward often adds a layer rather than replacing what you saw.
Sources: Miles McEnery Gallery, Markus Linnenbrink exhibition materials, 2026; Arthur Danto, widely documented statement on interpretation and artworks; Clyfford Still, widely documented artist statement; Marcel Duchamp, widely documented aphorism on titles; Georgia O'Keeffe, widely documented 1939 exhibition statement; Susan Sontag, "Against Interpretation," 1964; John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1972. NOTE — tastemaker quote bank ran 1/5 this post (Arthur Danto, critic/philosopher); no additional named living gallerist/curator/advisor quote specifically on abstract-painting titling was found within this run's search budget. Flagged rather than padded.
