“Steel Drawing with Fruit, Flowers and Monica” is a laser-cut steel engraved picture covered with enamel. It was created by an American painter Tom Wesselmann, who drew his inspiration from Henri Matisse’s still lifes.
Wesselmann depicted a table with a bowl of fruit, a vase with yellow flowers, a blue teapot and a framed woman’s portrait standing on it. The background shows a dark shadow of the back of the chair and reddish-pink floral wallpaper behind it.
Wesselmann’s technique imitates the use of crayons or colored pencils. The contours of the objects are outlined with free broad strokes. Upon a closer look, one can notice that the lines are actually cut out of sheet steel and colored.
Tom Wesselmann used this “illusion” to suggest that original works were only considered unique and valuable if they were made by hand. He also pondered the question of whether machine production and uniqueness could coexist in modern art.
Tom Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati in 1931. He served in the army and participated in the Korean War, and it was during that period that he began making his first cartoons. Wesselmann would later become famous as a representative of the Pop Art movement.
Pop Art is an art movement that emerged in the 1950s — 1960s as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism. In their works, Pop Art artists used imagery from popular culture, for example, Andy Warhol is known for a Campbell’s soup can.
In the 1960s — 1970s, Wesselmann turned to popular advertising images and combined elements of collage and assemblage. The central theme of his artwork was nude images of women, which he intended as an artistic and sexual provocation of the viewer. In 1961, he started creating his famous Great American Nude series of paintings.
In the 1980s, Wesselmann developed a new artistic approach by creating images cut by laser from a sheet of metal. The picture from the museum’s collection was made in 1986. It combines the engraving method and Pop Art imagery: the framed portrait of Monica shows only her lips and hair and is considered to echo the image of the woman from the series of Great American Nudes.
Wesselmann depicted a table with a bowl of fruit, a vase with yellow flowers, a blue teapot and a framed woman’s portrait standing on it. The background shows a dark shadow of the back of the chair and reddish-pink floral wallpaper behind it.
Wesselmann’s technique imitates the use of crayons or colored pencils. The contours of the objects are outlined with free broad strokes. Upon a closer look, one can notice that the lines are actually cut out of sheet steel and colored.
Tom Wesselmann used this “illusion” to suggest that original works were only considered unique and valuable if they were made by hand. He also pondered the question of whether machine production and uniqueness could coexist in modern art.
Tom Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati in 1931. He served in the army and participated in the Korean War, and it was during that period that he began making his first cartoons. Wesselmann would later become famous as a representative of the Pop Art movement.
Pop Art is an art movement that emerged in the 1950s — 1960s as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism. In their works, Pop Art artists used imagery from popular culture, for example, Andy Warhol is known for a Campbell’s soup can.
In the 1960s — 1970s, Wesselmann turned to popular advertising images and combined elements of collage and assemblage. The central theme of his artwork was nude images of women, which he intended as an artistic and sexual provocation of the viewer. In 1961, he started creating his famous Great American Nude series of paintings.
In the 1980s, Wesselmann developed a new artistic approach by creating images cut by laser from a sheet of metal. The picture from the museum’s collection was made in 1986. It combines the engraving method and Pop Art imagery: the framed portrait of Monica shows only her lips and hair and is considered to echo the image of the woman from the series of Great American Nudes.
