Female I

1979

Not on view

This drawing, delicately subtle and pressed to the limits of saturation, reveals a dense network of parallel and overlapping lines that play with and against one another across the surface. Related to this drawing is a 1974 construction of the same name in which Miyamoto wrapped cotton thread around nails hammered into the wall and the floor, resulting in a tension between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional, the opaque and the transparent. Both the drawing and the string construction imply gestural actions—pulling, pushing, hanging, stringing, balancing—and reflect Miyamoto’s interest in bodily traces, where the female form referenced in the title is not overtly evident, but subtly implied.

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Inscriptions and Markings

Provenance

Title: Female I
Artist: Kazuko Miyamoto (Japanese, born 1942)
Date: 1979
Medium: Ink and graphite on tracing paper
Dimensions: 35 3/8 × 18 1/8 in. (89.9 × 46 cm)
Classification: Drawings
Credit Line: Purchase, Gifts of Mrs. Oscar Miestchaninoff and Theodore J. Edlich, by exchange, 2018
Object Number: 2018.68
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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Untitled, Kazuko Miyamoto Japanese, String and nails — Untitled
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Untitled, Kazuko Miyamoto Japanese, Pen and pink ink, blue ballpoint pen, and graphite on two joined sheets of paper — Untitled
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