White Angel #2 (Primary Title)
Dorothea Rockburne, Canadian, born 1932 (Artist)
“I was intrigued by a statement from Courbet, who, in reaction against ecclesiastical work around him . . . said “Show me an angel and I’ll paint it.” I thought it would be more marvelous to do an abstract angel: since there were no people with big wings sitting around posing, angels were probably the first non-geometric abstraction in painting.” - Dorothea Rockburne
Rockburne’s concern with geometry and with rational, ordered thinking links her to Minimalism and Conceptual Art, out of which her work developed in the 1960s. After exploring mathematical permutations and ideal proportions like the Golden Mean, Rockburne sought inspiration in the compositional principles of earlier art.
The square and elegant White Angel #2 is deceptively simple. Paper folded in geometric patterns, it appears to focus solely on its own making. But it is actually part of a series based on the work of the early Renaissance painter Duccio. The title, as well as the work’s folds and forms, refers to an angel guarding Christ’s tomb in a painting in the Cathedral of Siena.
The Sydney and Frances Lewis Foundation Collection, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, January 31 – March 14, 1982; Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, September 10 – October 31, 1982; Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA, November 14, 1982 – January 16, 1983; University Memorial Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, January 30 – March 13, 1983; Muscarelle Museum, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, February 4 – April 14, 1984
Dorothea Rockburne: Egyptian Paintings and White Angels, 1979-81, Xavier Fourcade, New York, NY, September 22 - October 24, 1981
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