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Merce C

Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery

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Object Details

Artist
Franz Kline, born Wilkes-Barre, PA 1910-died New York City 1962
Sitter
Merce Cunningham
Gallery Label
Merce C is Franz Kline's tribute to the dancer-choreographer Merce Cunningham, with whom he taught at the experimental art school Black Mountain College in North Carolina in the 1950s. The strokes of dense black paint pushing their way through the white field suggest a pair of athletic dancers carving the space with their movements. Kline was a methodical painter who made preliminary sketches for his large canvases and contemplated each stroke of the brush. He worked and reworked edges and intersections, overpainting black on white and white on black to create dynamic structure. The spatters and drips of black paint reveal that Merce C was painted on the horizontal, resting on what is now the canvas's right edge. Kline probably arrived at the title only after he had turned the canvas around. He was in the habit of naming his paintings sometimes months after they were finished, and never tried to paint a preconceived idea. Kline once said that it was enough to experience the "pure excitement of... things happening" on the canvas.
Credit Line
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc.
1961
Object number
1969.47.64
Restrictions & Rights
Usage conditions apply
Type
Painting
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
93 x 74 5/8 in. (236.2 x 189.4 cm.)
See more items in
Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection
Department
Painting and Sculpture
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Topic
Abstract
Performing arts\dance
Portrait male
Record ID
saam_1969.47.64
Metadata Usage (text)
Not determined
GUID (Link to Original Record)
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/vk7d1bc238f-7a4b-4b02-91a2-af0cf0cdd48d

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