Detail of Men's Dormitory by Artschwager in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 2011

Men's Dormitory

Richard Artschwager (American, born 1923)

Date: 1966

Medium: Acrylic on cardboard

Dimensions: H. 41, W. 59-1/2 inches (104.1 x 149.9 cm.)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: George A. Hearn Fund, 1989

Accession Number: 1989.81

Description:

Artschwager began his career as a furniture-maker in the 1950s and is known for his conceptual sculptures, covered with wood-grained formica and bright acrylic paint, that at first seem to mimic dressers, chairs, or cabinets. By the 1960s he had also begun to make paintings like this one in a gray, monotone acrylic that have black-and-white found photographs as their sources. The support for these paintings is Celotex, an insulating product used in construction, which provides the strange allover texture-like an artificially-produced brushwork.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/2100...