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Back on Earth

Abstract painting with defined sections of green, blue, black, and white on an irregularly shaped canvas
© 1981 Elizabeth Murray

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  • Abstract painting with defined sections of green, blue, black, and white on an irregularly shaped canvas

Date:

1981

Artist:

Elizabeth Murray
American, 1940–2007

About this artwork

Beginning in 1976, Elizabeth Murray developed a reputation for her brightly colored, sculptural, shaped canvases, which illustrate objects and figures from her daily life. Influenced by Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, and comic art, her vibrant and energetic visual language playfully complicates the formal attributes of painting. In Back on Earth, two grandly scaled canvases—one geometric (blue), the other biomorphic (green)—are inextricably linked by the artist’s assertive use of color and rambunctious imagery. The animated, squidlike table is a recurring motif in Murray’s paintings and is utilized here to visually link the canvases and to further confound the relationship between figure and ground.

Status

On View, Gallery 293

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Elizabeth Murray

Title

Back on Earth

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1981

Medium

Oil on two canvases

Dimensions

Installed: 306.1 × 342.9 cm (120 9/16 × 135 in.); 306.1 × 342.9 cm (120 1/2 × 135 in.)

Credit Line

Purchased with funds provided by Solomon B. Smith; Twentieth-Century Discretionary Fund

Reference Number

1982.406

Copyright

© 1981 Elizabeth Murray

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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