Untitled

1984

American, born 1945

In the mid 1970s Rothenberg and many of her young peers turned from minimalist training to explore personal imagery and expressive techniques. Rothenberg resited detailed representations, preferring to keep her motif as suggestive and uncertain as the style in which it was rendered. The person in this drawing is reduced to a compressed, truncated silhouette, evokin anxious isolation. The piece has a very tactile quality, and vigorous erasing has pulled loose countless feathery strands.

Charcoal on paper

50 1/8 x 38 1/4 in. (127.3 x 97.1 cm)

Mary Arrington Small Estate Acquisition Fund

85.58

Provenance: Willard Gallery, Inc., New York City; Purchased with funds from the estate of Mary Arrington Small, April 5, 1985

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Freeing the Figure, December 2, 2009 - July 3, 2011

Ithaca, New York, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, "Susan Rothenberg: Prints and Drawings", 8/22-10/25/98; Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1/13-3/24/99; Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM, 3/21-5/24/99 (8/1998 - 5/1999)

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Collection Highlights: 1945 To The Present", September 12, 1996 - June 1, 1997. (09/12/1996 - 06/01/1997)

Published References"Selected Works." Seattle, Washington: Seattle Art Museum, 1991, p. 132.

Seattle Art Museum. “Acquisitions.” Seattle Art Museum Calendar (June 1985): p. 3.

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