Untitled Family Group
1992
Viola Frey’s large-scale ceramic figures boldly place both the everyday individual and the world of craft into the realm of monuments. Here, three conventionally dressed, contemporary figures sit atop a classical base, surrounded by the vestiges of art history: an equestrian figure, a female nude, a prone head reminiscent of a Roman imperial colossus, and figures dressed in both Eastern and Western historical garb. Unifying all the figures with her singular expressionistic style, the artist wryly collapses old and new, monumental and mundane, onto equal footing.
Ceramic with paint
75 x 43 x 29 in. (190.5 x 109.22 x 73.66 cm)
Gift of William L. True in honor of Patterson Sims
95.142
Photo: Scott Leen
