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Contemporary Art

Blinds

Mary Heilmann

1 of 2

Object Label

If the Abstract Expressionists of the 1950s and 1960s painted to achieve a sublime experience that transcended the ordinary, Mary Heilmann’s work in the subsequent decade played off of this tradition by humorously grounding abstraction in everyday life. Blinds comes from a series of abstract works inspired by the artist’s immediate surroundings, such as air vents, French doors, and window blinds. The work also questions the Renaissance concept of paintings as windows into other worlds by remaining resolutely and irreverently in ours. Heilmann has said that her decision to take up painting in 1968, when most major white male critics labeled the medium “dead,” was a calculated and “antagonistic move.”

Caption

Mary Heilmann (American, born 1940). Blinds, 1975. Oil on canvas, overall: 72 1/4 × 48 3/4 × 1/2 in. (183.5 × 123.8 × 1.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of The Solomon Foundation, 2009.7.3. © Mary Heilmann. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

Gallery

Not on view

Title

Blinds

Date

1975

Medium

Oil on canvas

Classification

Painting

Dimensions

overall: 72 1/4 × 48 3/4 × 1/2 in. (183.5 × 123.8 × 1.3 cm)

Inscriptions

Inscribed on reverse: "Mary Heilmann/ 1975/ "Blinds"/ TOP [enclosed with up-arrow in a vertically oriented rectangle]" The entire inscription is enclosed within a drawn square, graphite (est.). Label attached to horizontal crossbar, right: "...West Broadway, New York, N.Y.10012/ Artist: Mary Heilmann/ Title Blinds Date 1975/ HSG # MH 18 Collection 1" Label attached to horizontal crossbar, left: "Holly..." (gallery name to the left of the following information) "392 West Broadway/ Artist: Mary.../ Title: / Me___oil c.../ Size 7..."..."

Credit Line

Gift of The Solomon Foundation

Accession Number

2009.7.3

Rights

© Mary Heilmann

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Frequent Art Questions

  • Tell me more.

    Isn't this a great piece? I love how beautiful and visible the paint strokes are.
    In the 1970s, Heilmann painted a series of works inspired by details of places she had lived and worked. That included air vents, French doors, and window blinds.
    The name of the series this work is from, the "Jealousy Painting" series, is a play on the word jalousie, a colloquial French word for a time of adjustable window blind.
    Thank you :)

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Artists and makers

Mary Heilmann

2 works in the collection