Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective

"Untitled (Salvador Dali's Birthday Party)," a 1973 gelatin silver print "chemigram" by Jay DeFeo. (© 2012 The Jay DeFeo Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS) / New York photograph by Ben Blackwell)

This retrospective is the definitive exhibition to date of the work of Jay DeFeo (1929-89), one of the most important and innovative artists of her generation, but one who has still not been given her due. At the outset of her career in the 1950s, DeFeo was at the epicenter of the vibrant Beat community of San Francisco Bay Area artists, poets, and musicians. Although best known for The Rose (1958-66), an almost two-thousand-pound Pokies visionary masterpiece that languished behind a wall for twenty years, DeFeo created an astoundingly diverse range of works. Her unconventional approach to materials and intensive, physical process make DeFeo a unique figure in postwar American art. With close to 150 works, including collages, drawings, paintings, photographs, small sculptures, and jewelry, the exhibition, organized by Whitney Museum of American Art curator Dana Miller, provides the first in-depth assessment of her work for a national audience, tracing DeFeo’s visual concerns and motifs across more than four decades of art-making. 

On view at SFMOMA until Feburary 3, 2013. The show travels to the Whitney Museum from February 28–June 2, 2013. Don’t miss.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 17th, 2012 at 8:00 am. It is filed under Creative Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.