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.