Date unknown, 1986: BROOKLYN, N.Y.--Site Drawings by Martyl: The Precinct of Mut at Luxor, a series of drawings based on the artist’s observations of The Brooklyn Museum’s annual archaeological excavation in Egypt, will be exhibited at the Museum from May 16 through July 21, 1986 in the second floor Print Gallery. The exhibition will consist of forty works, all executed in 1985, in media ranging from pen and ink to watercolor and acrylic on paper.
Last winter, Martyl, a noted landscape painter from the Chicago area, joined the Museum’s dig at the Precinct of Mut in Luxor at the Museum’s invitation. In Luxor, she made notebook drawings of the landscape and architecture, and of the artifacts unearthed in the excavation. Back in her studio, she used the notebooks as reference, creating drawings of increasing scale, the largest of which is a triptych in pen and ink measuring 80 by 156 inches overall. Since all stages of the project will be represented in the exhibition, the viewer will be able to trace the development from site drawings to finished works and from very specific notations of visual data to more and more abstract compositions.
Martyl’s subjects range from an aerial view of Aswan and panoramas of the west bank of the Nile at Thebes to minutely detailed studies of pottery shards that perfectly convey glaze and texture. A number of drawings deal with statues of Sakhmets, a class of leonine deities with whom Mut was identified. These goddesses, depicted as having women’s bodies and lions’ heads, were the great protectors of Egypt who were also capable, if not appeased with music, drink, and other offerings, of unleashing terrible wrath on the land. In one particularly surrealistic work, Sakhmet Buried, Martyl depicts a Sakhmet as they were originally discovered, half buried in the sand, but she makes the sand transparent, creating a particularly eerie image.
Site Drawings by Martyl: The Precinct of Mut at Luxor not only shows the conceptual development of a contemporary artist working within a theme, but also serves as a visual report on The Brooklyn Museum’s activities in excavation and preservation of Egyptian artifacts and architecture.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1971 - 1988. 1986, 063.
