Meyer Schapiro
Segal’s admiration for the renowned art historian Meyer Schapiro (1904–1996) is evident in this sensitive bas-relief portrait, in which the subject seems to actively emerge from the plaster, eyes closed in meditative contemplation. This otherwise sober portrait is transformed through color: the background and the body are painted in a brilliant blue, and even the face and hands, while painted naturalistically, are glazed with a light wash of the same azure tint. Segal was drawn to the chromatic and historically symbolic possibilities of blue: he considered it a subtle and sensitive color whose transparency could reveal layers of form and meaning, and thus a particularly apt hue for his intellectual mentor.
Artwork Details
- Title: Meyer Schapiro
- Artist: George Segal (American, Bronx, New York 1924–2000 South Brunswick, New Jersey)
- Date: 1977
- Medium: Painted plaster
- Dimensions: 38 1/4 × 26 1/2 × 13 in., 55.3 lb. (97.2 × 67.3 × 33 cm, 25.1 kg)
- Classification: Sculpture
- Credit Line: Gift of Paul Jenkins, 1981
- Object Number: 1981.146
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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