About This Artwork
Cecilia Edefalk
Swedish, born 1954
Sienna1999
Oil on canvas
80 x 53 cm (31 1/2 x 21 in.)
Restricted gift of the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, 2007.9
Contemporary Art
Not on Display
Cecilia Edefalk’s work, almost always a serial exploration of a single motif, is distinguished by frequent experiments with duplication, scale, and proportion. All of the artist’s paintings emerge from a relationship to other modes of representation. For Edefalk, sculpture, notably historic statuary, has been a catalyst that she has consistently reinterpreted in order to reflect on experiences that bind her to a particular work. At one point in her career, she traveled to Italy, where she became fascinated by a Quattrocento statue, a polychrome wood angel for an Annunciation. This led her to create a series of paintings, including the haunting portrait Sienna. Although Edefalk considers this an independent composition, it marks the close of the series and aims to capture the mystical qualities she prized in the statue.