Venturi and Blue Pinion

Artist James Rosenquist (American, 1933 - 2017)

Date1983

MediumOil on canvas triptych

DimensionsOverall: 78 × 198 inches (198.12 × 502.92 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: Nelson Gallery Foundation

Object numberF84-35 A-C

On View

Not on view

Collections

Contemporary Art

Terms

DescriptionBlue upright gear form, right, crossed by diagonal stripe (white, red, flesh, pink, browns) pointing left and upward, crossing woman's horizontal face, with blue eyes, from topmost of which issue five fanned planes (two top, silver; left center, mottled; 2 bottom striped). White tube form, left, greenish-yellow inside, bluish out; dark bule above and below tube, lightening to center.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Looking South: A Different Dixie, Birmingham Museum of Art, AL, October 14-December 31, 1988; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, TN, February 15-April 9, 1989; Sheldon Swope Museum of Art, Terre Haute, IN, May 7-July 2, 1989; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL, August 6-October 1, 1989; The Columbus Museum, GA, November 15, 1989-January 30, 1990, unnumbered, (Birmingham, Memphis, and Terre Haute only).

Gallery Label

In Venturi and Blue Pinion, a woman is flanked by two machine parts, the venturi (left) and blue pinion (right). A fan of linoleum samples that interrupts the woman's gaze activates the composition and provides a sense of depth. By removing the objects from their original context, Rosenquist suggests that they be read in purely formal or abstract terms.

The large scale and hard-edged planes of bright colors in James Rosenquist's painting reflect his early employment as a billboard painter. In the 1960s, Rosenquist established himself as a Pop artist but, while his work displays some characteristics of Pop (industrial paints and use of popular imagery from advertising), his position is ambiguous. Unlike other Pop artists, Rosenquist's imagery has included unexpected, unsettling juxtapositions and disproportionate scale.

Provenance

With Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, by 1984;

Purchased from Leo Castelli Gallery by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1984.

Published References

Looking South: A Different Dixie ex. cat. (Birmingham: Birmingham Museum of Art, 1988), 15.

“James Rosenquist,” The Kansas City Star (October 21, 1984).

Deborah Emont Scott, “Venturi and Blue Pinion,” A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions 1977-1987 (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1987): 195, (repro.).

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