Jay DeFeo
Untitled

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Images(4)

Artist Jay DeFeo (American, 1929–1989)American, 1929–1989

CultureAmerican

Titles

Untitled

Date1972

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 6 5/8 × 7 7/16 in. (16.8 × 18.9 cm)
Sheet: 6 5/8 × 7 7/16 in. (16.8 × 18.9 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the S. I. Morris Photography Endowment

Object number2015.186

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionAfter studying fine art at the University of California, Berkeley, DeFeo was at the center of a vibrant community of avant-garde artists, writers, poets, and musicians who formed the Bay Area “Beat” scene of the 1950s and 1960s. She moved fluidly and innovatively between drawing, painting, collage, small-scale sculpture, and photography, each medium serving as an outgrowth of and seed for the others. In the early 1970s, she turned to photography with greater intensity and produced a series of intimate close-ups of plants, shells, and assorted objects. For this image, a barnacle-encrusted shell was dramatically lit and photographed at table height and so closely that its subject seems at first monumental and enigmatic. Its contrasting dark, rugged exterior and white, polished, sensuously undulating interior reference other works in her oeuvre, including the rough relief of her monumental painting The Rose (1958–66), and drawings, paintings, and photographs of her own teeth, but they might well be seen also as an expression of the essential dualities of life.
ProvenanceArtist; The Jay DeFeo Trust via Mitchell-Inness & Nash, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, 2014
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Inscribed in graphite on verso lower left: P139 (sideways),
Inscribed in graphite on verso center: 4 paper / 28 stops / 4 [scratched out] seconds / May 15

Printed labels on frame verso:

The Jay DeFeo Trust / 1451 Lincoln Street • Berkeley, CA 94702 / To protect photographs and woks on paper from / ultraviolet radiation damage, please keep light exposure / to a minimum. Do not expose to direct sunlight. / UV Protective Acrylic Glazing / Do not use tape on surface. To clean, apply non-alcohol-based / acrylic cleaner to lint-free cloth; do not spray directly on acrylic.

The Jay DeFeo Trust / 1451 Lincoln Street • Berkeley, CA 94702 / www.jaydefeo.org /// Jay DeFeo / Untitled 1972 / gelatin silver print / 6 5/8 x 7 7/16 inches (16.8 x 18.9 cm) / Estate no PO139

MITCHELL-INNES & NASH / 534 WEST 26TH STREET NEW YORK / JAY DEFEO / May 1 - June 7, 2014 / JAY DeFEO / Untitled // Cat. no. MI&N 11110

MITCHELL-INNES & NASH / NEW YORK / JAY DEFEO / Untitled / 1972 / Gelatin silver print / 6 5/8 x 7 7/16 in. 16.8 by 18.9 cm. / (MI&N 11110)

handmade frames inc. / 1013 Grand Street / Brooklyn, NY 11211 / Phone: 718: 718.782.8364 / www.handmadeframes.us

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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