American painter who lived in Paris between 1950 and 1952, where he met Ellsworth Kelly, George Sugarman, Jack Youngerman and Sam Francis. On his return to the United States, Held established some contacts within the Abstract Expressionist group of painters. In 1967, he attacked everything that was dominating American painting at the time: symmetry and vulgarity, focusing on Hard Edge painting. Held's style maintained the ethic of Abstract Expressionism. He removed colour and produced various series of black and white paintings, returning to an increased range of colours at a later stage. He experimented with simple, spatially related, geometrical forms, with some superimposed on others.
