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Overview
Elizabeth Murray: Artist Introduction Panel
“I really enjoy making [my paintings], and I like the thing-ness of them. It also is my nature to say, “You don’t like objects? Well, I’ll give you objects. You’re not going to believe the object I’m working on right now.”
—Murray, 1987
Elizabeth Murray
Born 1940, Chicago; died 2007, Washington County, New York
Elizabeth Murray initially planned to be a commercial artist before encountering the works of Paul Cézanne and other artists at the Art Institute of Chicago, which persuaded her to become a painter. She arrived in New York in 1967, at a moment when painting was being declared dead, but she never wavered in her commitment to it. Her exuberant, highly physical works draw from the language of cartoons and graffiti and merge abstraction with representation. In the eccentrically shaped canvases she began making in the late 1970s, Murray quite literally expanded the boundaries of painting, and by the late 1980s, her complex artworks were projecting into the viewer’s space.
Objects
2 objects in the order you'll encounter them from this entrance. Select an object to view details.
Label Text
1987
Oil on canvas
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1994
It takes time to recognize that this warped canvas represents a table with legs in the form of four small elements that project from the canvas. On its surface Murray painted the dark-blue outline of another splayed table, along with an elongated spoon and a cup filled with an orange-red liquid that splatters outward. She drew upon imagery from her immediate surroundings—everyday objects in her studio and home. The forms unmistakably reference the body, with suggestions of orifices and fluids. At the same time, the pool of orange and the giant drops refer to the medium of paint itself.
Visual Description
A wide, irregularly contoured oil-on-canvas work (about 7 × 9 × 1 ft) presents an abstract composition containing cool greens and blues with a vivid orange-red core. A deep teal field is modulated by soft gradients and shadowy, angular shapes. Near the center-right is a large orange-red oval form, its interior subtly mottled with darker tones. Overlapping this oval on the left side, a white-and-pale-blue ring encircles a small gray center. A thick, white ribbon line trails from this ring and loops downward and to the right, then back toward the lower edge. Several red, teardrop-shaped marks radiate around the central cluster. Some point outward like splashes or droplets. In the lower center, a second circular motif appears: a blue dot encircled by a white ring, set within a lighter blue oval patch. On the left side, a pale turquoise sweep curves inward, and near the lower-left quadrant a small spiral-like circle with a white center is surrounded by tiny red droplet marks. Along the upper right and far left edges, short, raised-looking teal bars or tabs project inward. The palette also contains white contour lines and soft airbrushed shading.
Tactile Object Available
There is a physical touch object associated with this artwork.
View Tactile Object Details →Tactile Description
[DRAFT TEXT UPDATE WITH TACTILE DESCRIPTION] A large, irregularly shaped oil-on-canvas painting shows swirling teal and blue forms around a bright orange-red central oval, punctuated by white-rimmed circular motifs and red droplet-like marks.
Artwork Label Text
1987
Oil on canvas
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1994