Elizabeth Murray

“Dreams are like paintings. They are completely unpredictable.” 1–Elizabeth Murray

Elizabeth Murray was an American artist, famous for her bold and colorful

paintings. Murray was born in 1940, and grew up in Chicago. She graduated from the Art

Institute in Chicago in 1962, and received her MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California

in 1964. She was married twice and had three children (one son and two daughters). In

1999, she received the MacArthur Fellowship, and was honored throughout her life for her

accomplishments in art. Most notable, in 2006, the Museum of Modern Art hosted a

retrospective to honor her forty year career. She was most famous for her later works,

which were painted onto large shaped canvases. She compiled abstract forms in bold

colors into large puzzle-like compositions. By using the shaped canvases as part of her art,

Murray blurred the line between painting and sculpture. Elizabeth Murray died from

cancer at in 2007 at the age of 66.2 Her legacy is carried on through the liveliness of her

paintings.

Elizabeth Murray’s art career really took off in the 1970s. In the beginning, she

created small paintings with simple straight lines. In the mid-1970s, she transitioned to

larger paintings with curved lines and more color. 3 Murray would often reference the

domestic world in her paintings. Coffee cups and furniture were common motifs.

1 Corinne Robins, “Elizabeth Murray.” Woman’s Art Journal. Vol 27, No 1. (Old City Publishing). P 33-36 2 Roberta Smith, “Artist of Vivid Forms Dies at 66.” The New York Times. August 13, 2007. 3 Robins, “Elizabeth Murray.”

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Later in her career, she used large shaped canvases and bright, saturated color. These later

paintings had more emotion and action than her earlier work.4 The paintings I will focus

on in this paper come from the later portion of her art career. Elizabeth Murray used her

paintings to “present a universe where everything is on the very of turning into something

else.”5

Elizabeth Murray used her paintings to celebrate the joys of life, but also to speak to

deeper and more emotional issues she was battling in her personal life.6 She painted both

“goofy” and “serious” works in very similar styles. Her paintings portrayed the thoughts

dominating her mind. She tackled serious emotional issues with bright colors and bold

shapes.7 For example, she painted Deeper than D, while her mother was dying. The colorful

shapes represent something much darker and deeper than they would appear on the

surface.8

Especially in her later work, Elizabeth Murray had very distinct formal strategies

she applied to her paintings. Shaped canvases, bold color, and abstract forms were three

key components to her work.910 The shaped canvases are a very distinct element of her

paintings. After creating a sketch of the piece, Murray would build the shapes out of wood,

4 Elizabeth Murray, Sue Grace, and Kathy Halbreich. Elizabeth Murray Paintings and Drawings. (New York: HN Abrams in association with the Dallas Museum of Art and the MIT Committee on the Visual Arts, 1987). 5 Eleanor Heartney, “Elizabeth Murray at PaceWildenstein.” Art in America. (Brant Publications Inc.) 6 Elizabeth Murray and Francine Prose. Elizabeth Murray: Paintings 1999-2003. (New York: PaceWildenstein, 2003) 7 “Elizabeth Murray: Bop and the Process of Painting.” Art 21. http://www.art21.org/texts/elizabeth-murray/interview-elizabeth-murray-bop-and-the-process-of-painting 8 Robert Storr and the Museum of Modern Art. Elizabeth Murray. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2005). 9 Jerry Saltz, “Relentless Tempest.” Voices Choices. (October-November 2005). 10 Elizabeth Murray. Elizabeth Murray: Paintings 1999-2003.

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and stretch the canvas over it.11 This created a puzzle element to her paintings. Murray

also used strong and saturated colors in her paintings. She built up the surface with a thick

application of paint, and kept painting over and over until she got the color exactly how she

wanted it.12 In my opinion, the most interesting formal strategy Murray uses is her abstract

forms. The shapes have so much energy and appear almost as if they could explode.13 In

her paintings, the shapes are all connected to and often morphing into each other. The

shapes appear to be changing form in front of your eyes.14 The inventive forms use the

space in a creative way, and can represent something much deeper in Murray’s

mind.

The three paintings I am going to look at are Painter’s Progress, Bop, and Do the

Dance. Painter’s Progress represents the beginning of the transition to using multiple

canvases, Bop is an example of a “goofy” painting, and Do the Dance is an example of a

painting with a more serious concept behind it.

Painter’s Progress (Figure #1) was created in 1987. It is made out of a series of

small canvases, that Murray assembled together. It was one of the first paintings where she

broke away from the single small rectangle canvases with limited color and straight lines,

and used multiple canvases with bold colors and curving lines. In this piece, Murray moves

away from the linear sharpness of some of her previous works. She uses abstract shapes to

form a palette with three paintbrushes coming through its hole. When interviewed about

the piece, Murray explained that she started the painting without a concept, and just

11 Robins, “Elizabeth Murray.” 12 Elizabeth Murray. Elizabeth Murray, Paintings and Drawings. 13 Cary Levine, “Elizabeth Murray at PaceWildenstein.” Art in America (2003). p. 87. 14 Murray, Paintings.

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wanted to see what would come out of it.15 Apparently, Murray saw this paintbrush-

through-palette image while she was creating the piece, and decided to incorporate it.16

The palette and paintbrushes become more interesting because of the use of color and the

juxtaposition of the sharp straight edge of the canvases with the curved organic forms of

the shapes. The palette could also be interpreted to represent a person’s head, and the hole

could be seen as they eye.17 The color choice and the bulbous shapes foreshadow Murray’s

transition to a more abstract and cartoon-like way of painting.

The second painting, Bop (Figure #2) was created in 2002-2003. It is an oil painting

on multiple shaped canvases. Murray created the piece by cutting out these energetic

shapes and arranging and re-arranging them together until they made sense to her. She

compared it to a child playing with his blocks. “I’m just painting and painting, and painting

until the right thing happens,” she said.18 This painting uses all three of the formal

techniques that I studied to incorporate into my painting: shaped canvases, intense color,

and abstracted forms. Bop really shows Murray’s mastery of color.19 She expands her

range of color from the previous Painter’s Progress. The colors in Bop are intense and

saturated. She places complementary colors, like orange and blue, next to each other to

create contrast, and plays with hues within shapes to add interest. The forms in this

painting are also more abstract than in Painter’s Progress. In the bottom right corner, a

green door and a red arrow are visible, but many of the shapes leave lots of room for the

imagination. This painting is a great example of representation with abstraction. It is

15 Ibid. 16 Storr, Elizabeth Murray. 17 Murray, Elizabeth Murray Paintings and Drawings. 18 Elizabeth Murray. Art 21. 19 Ibid.

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unclear what all of the shapes are supposed to be, but they all interact with each other in an

interesting way. When interviewed about this piece for Art21, Elizabeth Murray explained

that she wanted to create conflict and tension in the way the pieces were connected with

each other.20 The odd shapes and bulges and the small hints of overlap successfully

accomplish this goal.

The third and final painting, Do The Dance, (Figure #3) was created in 2005. It was

constructed from five shaped panels and painted with oils. This piece, like Bop, uses all

three formal elements discussed earlier in this paper. In this piece, I think Murray is even

more successful at capturing movement in a still 2-D image. There are more colors and

more shapes, and more meaning behind it. Simply put, there is a lot going on in this

painting. Although Murray uses bright colors and cartoonish shapes, this painting has

serious undertones. Murray created this piece in 2005, right after she was diagnosed with

cancer.21 The mood of the painting remains bright and lively, but the content deals with a

much more serious and somber subject. A few of the figures directly relate to her

experience with cancer and chemotherapy treatment. In the bottom left of the painting,

there is dark red figure that appears to be a patient of a hospital. The figure is attached to

an IV drip, and has a pink doctor’s glove next to its head.22 Above the “patient” are a series

of white canvases attached by a blue ladder-type structure. This could represent the spinal

column or white blood cells, or a number of different things. At the bottom of the painting,

the blue squiggle represents Manhattan’s waters, and can be seen as encouraging the

viewer to “do the dance” (like the title instructs). The title of the piece comes from a Ray

20 Elizabeth Murray, Art 21.21 Ibid. 22 Roberta Smith. “Landscapes.”

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Charles song that Murray would listen to while she worked.23 In Do the Dance, Murray is

able to combine the tragic and sad with the light hearted. When asked about creating this

balance, Murray responded, “life is tragic and funny, and you get into horrible situations,

and you go on.”24

These three paintings were interesting to look at as a series because they show the

progression of Elizabeth Murray’s art. She pushed the limit on the three formal elements I

examined more and more as she developed in her career. The first painting, Painter’s

Progress, essentially uses five colors, rectangular canvases, and recognizable forms. The

second, Bop, uses more colors, shaped canvases, and the forms become more abstracted

and interactive. The third piece, Do the Dance, incorporates even more colors, shapes,

variation, and there is a lot more interaction between the figures. As she progressed in her

career, Murray advanced the way the shapes interacted with each other to create her

compositions.

Elizabeth Murray was a fascinating artist. Her use of bright colors and bold shapes

make her work distinct. She successfully captured movement in still paintings, and was

able to keep her paintings breezy and upbeat even when examining serious personal

issues.

23 Roberta Smith, “Landscapes and Still Lifes of New Territories.” The New York Times. December 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/arts/design/31smith.html?pagewanted=all

24 Elizabeth Murray, Art21.

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Figure #1. Elizabeth Murray, Painter’s Progress. 1981. Oil on canvas, nineteen panels, 9' 8" x 7' 9". Estate of Elizabeth Murray/Artists Rights Society.25

25 “Painters Progress.” MOMA. April 25, 2012. http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=79345

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Figure #2. Elizabeth Murray, Bop, 2002-2003. Oil on canvas. 9’10” x 10’ 10 ½ “ Courtesy PaceWildenstein.26

26 “Bop.” Art21. April 25, 2012. http://www.pbs.org/art21/images/elizabeth-murray/bop-2002-2003

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Figure #3. Elizabeth Murray, Do the Dance, 2005. Oil on canvas, 9'5" x 11'3" x 1.2" Courtesy PaceWildenstein.27

27 “Do the Dance.” MOMA. April 25, 2012. http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=98564

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