Emma
Artist
Dorothea Tanning
(American, 1910 - 2012)
Date1970
MediumFabric, wool, and lace
DimensionsOverall: 24 × 32 × 22 inches (60.96 × 81.28 × 55.88 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: acquired through the generosity of the William T. Kemper Foundation–Commerce Bank, Trustee
Object number2006.27
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionThis sculpture is made of pink knit cloth and white lace with a small cigarette burn. It is an abstract configuration of the female form and includes two breasts, abdomen with navel, and an armlike extension that doubles as a head.Gallery LabelDorothea Tanning is an artist associated with Surrealism, which delves into the realm of the unconscious mind, celebrating the irrational, the imaginary, the dream and the instinctual.
Emma, the title of this enigmatic work, refers to Emma Bovary, the tragic character who dies from arsenic in Gustave Flaubert's 19th-century novel Madame Bovary. The semi-abstract sculpture, with its rounded breasts, abdomen with navel and limb-like extrusion, suggests a disassembled and reconfigured female form. Femininity is accentuated by the addition of a lace garment that encircles the form. This bizarre, distorted and somewhat monstrous body can only have been born from the realm of the unconscious. Emma is "sur" real-above and outside the real world as we know it.
Emma, the title of this enigmatic work, refers to Emma Bovary, the tragic character who dies from arsenic in Gustave Flaubert's 19th-century novel Madame Bovary. The semi-abstract sculpture, with its rounded breasts, abdomen with navel and limb-like extrusion, suggests a disassembled and reconfigured female form. Femininity is accentuated by the addition of a lace garment that encircles the form. This bizarre, distorted and somewhat monstrous body can only have been born from the realm of the unconscious. Emma is "sur" real-above and outside the real world as we know it.
Copyright© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
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