Lee Bontecou
Untitled1960

On view:

Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

Artist or Maker: Lee Bontecou
United States, Rhode Island, Providence, 1931-2022
Title: Untitled
Place Made: United States
Date Made: 1960
Medium: Welded metal, canvas, and wire relief
Dimensions: 7 3/4 x 7 x 3 in. (19.69 x 17.78 x 7.62 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Robert H. Halff through the Modern and Contemporary Art Council
Accession Number: M.2005.38.4
Classification: Sculpture
Collecting Area: Modern Art
Curatorial Notes: Fabricated the year after Lee Bontecou created her first wall-mounted steel-and-canvas sculpture, this untitled, small-scale relief serves as a three-dimensional sketch, offering key insights into the artist’s spatial logic. A central aperture, covered by a metal grill, is surrounded by several irregularly sized openings that punctuate the relief’s surface, inviting viewers to gaze into its seemingly boundless space. This maquette, an important testing ground for Bontecou’s larger forms, exemplifies the dynamic interplay between negative and positive space that characterizes the sculptor’s broader oeuvre. Here, voids and absence are as generative as the tactility of worn canvas.

Frances Lazare

2024
Selected Bibliography: Meyer, James. Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959-1971. Washington: National Gallery of Art; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.
Copyright: © Lee Bontecou

Related Unframed

On view:

Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

Artist or Maker: Lee Bontecou
United States, Rhode Island, Providence, 1931-2022
Title: Untitled
Place Made: United States
Date Made: 1960
Medium: Welded metal, canvas, and wire relief
Dimensions: 7 3/4 x 7 x 3 in. (19.69 x 17.78 x 7.62 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Robert H. Halff through the Modern and Contemporary Art Council
Accession Number: M.2005.38.4
Classification: Sculpture
Collecting Area: Modern Art
Curatorial Notes: Fabricated the year after Lee Bontecou created her first wall-mounted steel-and-canvas sculpture, this untitled, small-scale relief serves as a three-dimensional sketch, offering key insights into the artist’s spatial logic. A central aperture, covered by a metal grill, is surrounded by several irregularly sized openings that punctuate the relief’s surface, inviting viewers to gaze into its seemingly boundless space. This maquette, an important testing ground for Bontecou’s larger forms, exemplifies the dynamic interplay between negative and positive space that characterizes the sculptor’s broader oeuvre. Here, voids and absence are as generative as the tactility of worn canvas.

Frances Lazare

2024
Selected Bibliography: Meyer, James. Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959-1971. Washington: National Gallery of Art; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.
Copyright: © Lee Bontecou