GUTTER CREDITS78 OCTOBER 2019
The Goods | ART & DESIGNveins of multiple pigments peek through.
“What you see is sometimes 11 layers of
transparent colors,” she says. Each panel
features a contrasting shade spilling down
the front—red on green, for example—the
result of Steir’s extra-juicy brushstrokes.
The effect is a second, complementary color
wheel. A onetime book designer and art
director, Steir is also creating a leporello,
an accordion-style book that will unfold
to reveal all 28 paintings simultaneously,
mimicking the circular installation.
Hirshhorn senior curator Evelyn C.
Hankins is particularly intrigued by Steir’s
take on the color wheel as equal parts
scientific discovery and artistic expression.
“It’s as much about perception of color as
mapping color,” Hankins says.
It’s not the first time Steir has co-opted
what’s generally considered to be an artist’s
tool or technique and turned it into her
primary subject. She gained fame in the
1980s with her “Waterfall” series, in which
she poured, splashed and flung paint onto
the canvases, evoking flowing water. “I
was making the cliché, the icon, of abstract
thinking—the drippy brushstroke—the
image,” she says in retrospect. One minorchange in her process: In those days she
climbed a ladder; now she uses a lift.
In the 1960s, Steir easily landed
museum and gallery shows after art
school—rare for a female artist of the era—
and developed close friendships with other
creative lights, including artist Agnes Mar-
tin, avant-garde composer John Cage and
his partner, choreographer Merce Cunning-
ham. Influenced by Cage, she embracedchance in her paintings and also paid hom-
age to Asian calligraphy and Taoism. “I was
a young woman in the ’70s, so all that was in
the air,” she says of Eastern philosophies. “I
wasn’t alone in that search.”
Steir has shown steadily over the decades,
but since joining Lévy Gorvy gallery in 2016,
she has enjoyed a surge of renewed interest.
In addition to the Hirshhorn show, which
will be on view until September 2020,
she recently had a much-praised exhibition
of new paintings at the Barnes Foundation,
designed the set for Cunningham’s centen-
nial celebration and was the subject of a
documentary film. But the quieter years
don’t seem to have bothered her. “I always
felt pride in my work,” she says. “I was the
little girl in the front of the room who said,
‘I know the answer! Call on me! I’m really
smart!’ That’s how I was about my work. I
didn’t realize if people were paying attention
or not. I always thought they were. Even
when they weren’t.”Details of Pat Steir: Color WheelAIR FRANCE OFFICE: GASTON KARQUEL/ARCHIVES CHARLOTTE PERRIAND; SALLE DE RÉCEPTION: ADAGP, PARIS/ARCHIVES CHARLOTTE PERRIAND78 OCTOBER 2019
The Goods | ART & DESIGNveins of multiple pigments peek through.
“What you see is sometimes 11 layers of
transparent colors,” she says. Each panel
features a contrasting shade spilling down
the front—red on green, for example—the
result of Steir’s extra-juicy brushstrokes.
The effect is a second, complementary color
wheel. A onetime book designer and art
director, Steir is also creating a leporello,
an accordion-style book that will unfold
to reveal all 28 paintings simultaneously,
mimicking the circular installation.
Hirshhorn senior curator Evelyn C.
Hankins is particularly intrigued by Steir’s
take on the color wheel as equal parts
scientific discovery and artistic expression.
“It’s as much about perception of color as
mapping color,” Hankins says.
It’s not the first time Steir has co-opted
what’s generally considered to be an artist’s
tool or technique and turned it into her
primary subject. She gained fame in the
1980s with her “Waterfall” series, in which
she poured, splashed and flung paint onto
the canvases, evoking flowing water. “I
was making the cliché, the icon, of abstract
thinking—the drippy brushstroke—the
image,” she says in retrospect. One minorchange in her process: In those days she
climbed a ladder; now she uses a lift.
In the 1960s, Steir easily landed
museum and gallery shows after art
school—rare for a female artist of the era—
and developed close friendships with other
creative lights, including artist Agnes Mar-
tin, avant-garde composer John Cage and
his partner, choreographer Merce Cunning-
ham. Influenced by Cage, she embracedchance in her paintings and also paid hom-
age to Asian calligraphy and Taoism. “I was
a young woman in the ’70s, so all that was in
the air,” she says of Eastern philosophies. “I
wasn’t alone in that search.”
Steir has shown steadily over the decades,
but since joining Lévy Gorvy gallery in 2016,
she has enjoyed a surge of renewed interest.
In addition to the Hirshhorn show, which
will be on view until September 2020,
she recently had a much-praised exhibition
of new paintings at the Barnes Foundation,
designed the set for Cunningham’s centen-
nial celebration and was the subject of a
documentary film. But the quieter years
don’t seem to have bothered her. “I always
felt pride in my work,” she says. “I was the
little girl in the front of the room who said,
‘I know the answer! Call on me! I’m really
smart!’ That’s how I was about my work. I
didn’t realize if people were paying attention
or not. I always thought they were. Even
when they weren’t.”Details of Pat Steir: Color WheelAIR FRANCE OFFICE: GASTON KARQUEL/ARCHIVES CHARLOTTE PERRIAND; SALLE DE RÉCEPTION: ADAGP, PARIS/ARCHIVES CHARLOTTE PERRIAND