Untitled

Hedda Sterne

ca. 1954 · Black chalk on paper · Modern and Contemporary Art

Unlike most of Sterne’s paintings, prints, and drawings from this time, which represent abstracted figures or contain recognizable references to machines and urban landscapes, this work is unique in that it seems to have no concrete corollary in the phenomenal world. It is, essentially, a study in fluidity, in movement, and in mark-making. The marks are generally clustered into small bursts or larger clouds and they occupy mostly the outer edges of the paper. They seem to dance and skip across the support, unmoored from gravity and perspectival space. As a whole, the composition suggests a transient moment captured on the page.

Artist

Hedda Sterne

Date

ca. 1954

Medium

Black chalk on paper

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Gift of Clara Diament Sujo and Glenn Sujo, 2017