Female Model on Ladder
Artist
Philip Pearlstein
(American, 1924 – 2022)
Date1976
CultureAmerican
MediumOil on canvas
ClassificationPaintings
Credit LineMuseum purchase, 1981
Object numberSN979
Working in Pittsburgh, Philip Pearlstein was almost exclusively a landscape painter in the Abstract Expressionist tradition during the 1940s and 1950s. Upon winning a Fulbright Fellowship award to paint in Rome from 1958-1959, he adopted a different style that was dependent on precise drawing and brushwork. Abandoning abstraction, he created strictly figural works, painting directly from the nude model and often choosing close viewpoints that dissolved the appropriate distance between artist and model. Viewing the human body as a landscape in its own right, Pearlstein developed an additive method of painting, whereby he developed one portion of the canvas at a time. Eschewing the primacy of narrative, he explained: "I only care about the visual aspect of paintings. I don't want the burden of literature thrust upon me when I only want to use my eyes."
On View
Not on viewImage: 72 x 96 in. (182.9 x 243.8 cm)
