Charles Hinman American, b. 1932

My consuming interest in making these paintings is to establish the real sculptural space of the work in context with an illusory space and show how these spaces interact. I think of my paintings as occupying a 6-dimensional space: the three dimensions of space, one each of time, light, and color.
- Charles Hinman

Charles Hinman (b. 1932) is a New York Minimal painter who pioneered three-dimensional shaped canvas paintings through his innovative use of shadow, light, and shape with complex mathematical formulae. Born and raised in Syracuse, New York, Hinman holds his BFA from Syracuse University and taught at the Arts Student League of New York. In 1965, he joined the growing community of artists on the Bowery and moved into his studio and living space at 231A Bowery in the same building with artists Will Insley, David Diao, Tom Wesselmann, and Max Gimblett, where Hinman resided for over fifty years.


Hinman's work has been included in era-defining exhibitions alongside many of his Minimalist and Conceptual contemporaries. His art career began with a seminal group exhibition at Sidney Janis Gallery, and thereafter his first solo exhibition at Richard Feigen Gallery in 1964. 


Charles Hinman's artwork is exhibited internationally and collected by major institutions and private collectors across the world. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Denver Art Museum, the Nagaoka Museum in Japan, and the Tel Aviv Museum in Israel, among others. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and four Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants. His most recent retrospective was in 2019 at the Kreeger Museum, Washington DC. Charles Hinman is exclusively represented by Westwood Gallery NYC.