What Do You See? The Collection of Sidney Rothberg, Part II

A prolific artist who garnered prominence in the late 1960s, Nancy Graves' oeuvre includes sculpture, paintings, drawings, prints, and watercolors, as well as set design and film. Educated at Vassar College and Yale, she studied with other famous artists including Brice Marden, Chuck Close, Robert Mangold and Richard Serra, to whom she was married from 1964 until 1970. In 1969 she became the youngest artist and the fifth woman to ever be chosen for a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Art. Following that show, her work was shown at countless galleries and museums, both nationally and internationally. The 1970s saw Graves veer away from sculpture and back towards painting. Her work at this time incorporated an amalgamation of imagery taken from lunar maps, nature photography, and NASA satellite recordings, blending the abstract nature of art with the precision of science. The present work belongs to the Australia Series the artist completed in 1985. Comprised of gouaches, and pastel drawings, the series is derived from collaged images of natural forms and patterns the artist observed in Australia's rich and varied landscapes. The repetition of pattern seen here reflects her interest in the photographic motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge, and the juxtaposition of color and form make this piece a visually and intellectually arresting one. As exemplified by the right hand-side of the work, which shows sculptural shapes and colors erupt from the horizontal patterned strip, Graves' work from this period is also more fluid. As the artist confessed herself: ‘The paintings have become more sculptural and the sculptures have become more painterly."