Lovers
Premised in part on Spero’s study of ancient Etruscan and Roman sources, Lovers belongs to a series called the Black Paintings. This work represents two nude figures, one female, the other male. The scene is intimate, erotic more than explicitly sexual, while the setting is imprecise: Spero makes no effort to concretize the figures’ place in either time or space. A swirling cloud of loose, slashing brushstrokes, painted in brownish-red hues, envelops the couple. Similarly, the figures are suggested more so than illustrated, with their bodies portrayed in a cursory fashion. The title, Lovers, takes its inspiration from the eponymous Tarot card, which symbolizes fusion, harmony, contact, and rapport. Spero’s overt depicture of figures, on the one hand, and scenes of desire, on the other, stands in pointed contrast to then-dominant movements in art, such as geometric abstraction, Conceptualism, and Minimalism. Indeed, to paint as she did in 1960 represents both a political and an artistic provocation.
Artwork Details
- Title: Lovers
- Artist: Nancy Spero (American, Cleveland 1926–2009 New York)
- Date: 1960
- Medium:
Opaque watercolor on paper
- Dimensions: 17 5/16 × 21 7/8 in. (44 × 55.5 cm)
- Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: Gift of Dan Miller, in loving memory of the artist, 2016
- Object Number: 2016.529.2
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
More Artwork
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Multiple artists/makers
2007
Nancy Spero
1994
Nancy Spero
1987
Charles Demuth
1928
Stuart Davis
1924
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