The
Little American Nudes
Tom Wesselmann at the
University Art Museum, CSULB
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In 1961, Matisse’s Blue
Nude occupied the artist’s attentions. In 1962, there was collage
in the more classical sense of the Cubists, but with a still more rounded
American outlook. In 1963, the Pop collage and a type of Manet’s Olympia
are sketched out. In 1964, a sculptural assemblage organizes space. In the
same year, the architecture of The Great American Nude is established,
a clean abstraction of the fulminating lines and tones that are the hallmark
of the œuvre. By 1967, the work is stated in definitive terms. Study
for Bedroom Painting #1 models a breast in three parts like a tower of
rotundities, the semi-circular base and areola, the nipple a spire. Behind
this, blue Venetian blinds. Next to them roses and an orange. Not merely an homage to
Matisse but a characteristic way of working in refinement made visibly
formal. Through the 1980’s, cut-outs and maquettes isolate line as
color, or brushstroke as both. In the 1990’s, a new surge of
abstraction reconsiders Matisse’s Dance (1909-10) in color
modulations akin to Riley, and thence metamorphoses (after the manner of
Lichtenstein, one might almost say) through Chamberlain (via
Kandinsky) toward Mondrian (Manhattan Beauty, 2000). Or so it seems,
considering this graduated exhibition of studies from the artist’s
personal collection. All of this goes into the
more recent nudes, a fabulous composition of brickwork titanesses limned in
starry outlines surrounded by the appurtenances of beauty. |
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