Mangold, Robert (1937- ), American painter of abstract works. Because of a focus in his paintings on geometric forms painted in smooth, flat colors, Mangold's work is associated with minimal art, a movement that dominated the middle and late 1960s and also included such American artists as Donald Judd and Carl Andre.
Mangold was born in 1937 in North Tonawanda, a suburb of Buffalo, New York. He attended the Cleveland Institute of Art from 1956 to 1959 and received his master of fine arts degree from Yale University in 1963. At his first solo exhibit in New York City, at Thibaut Gallery in 1964, Mangold exhibited curvilinear abstractions. He began working in series: first, the Walls relief paintings of 1964 and 1965; then Areas, from 1965 to 1967. Both series alluded to buildings or, more accurately, to the shapes of spaces between buildings. Like other minimalist artists, Mangold sought to create a feeling of anonymity in his work, using commercial airbrushes or paint rollers to create clean, monochromatic surfaces with only subtle variations within them.

Between 1965 and 1966 he began to cut pieces of fiberboard into odd shapes, playing with curves, with symmetrical and asymmetrical configurations, and varying the numbers of components in each piece. In 1967 Mangold began arranging his compositions in V, W, or X configurations, giving the finished works literal, descriptive titles, such as W Series Central Section Vertical (1968, Collection Stephen Antonakos and Naomi Spector, New York City). This painting looks very much as its title suggests: a shieldlike form, curved at the bottom, is bisected vertically down the middle and cut through by a W shape. The image may be read as a unified whole, two halves, wedge-shaped quarters, or as a three-part structure, depending on how it is viewed. This ambiguity causes subtle, hypnotic effects to emerge from an otherwise concrete form.
In the late 1970s and 1980s Mangold's canvases, sometimes with holes cut out to create frame shapes, became increasingly expressive and lyrical. He continued to use subtle colors but applied them loosely with a brush, occasionally adding interest with the play of curvilinear lines across the surface.