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Once

1978
Not on view
In 1978 Murray made a small series of irregular star-shaped paintings with the aim, she said, of "trying to complicate and obfuscate the edges" of her medium. Indeed, the jostling contours and vivid colors appear to explode outward, as if pressing the very form of the canvas into new arrangements. Murray’s dynamic compositions, charged brushstrokes, and radical disruption of the frame transform the picture plane into both surface and object. While these early paintings remain purely abstract, hints of imagery and reference return in subsequent works. Drawing on Cubism, Surrealism, and Minimalism, Murray’s fragmented geometries and biomorphic shapes reinvigorated formalist painting in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Once
  • Artist: Elizabeth Murray (American, Chicago, Illinois 1940–2007 Washington County, New York)
  • Date: 1978
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 53 1/8 × 47 3/4 in. (134.9 × 121.3 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Gift of Ruth Klein, 1988
  • Object Number: 1988.418.1
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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