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Article: Pat Steir at Cheim and Read. (New York).(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Art in America
- Article date:
- September 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Brant Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In his Natural History, Pliny tells the story of the painter Protogenes, who tries to depict a dog frothing at the mouth. Eventually, the enraged artist hurls a sponge soaked with paint at the image and accidentally achieves the effect he had hoped for. Thus, a particular form of action painting entered the Western canon. Pat Steir is a distinguished heir to this tradition, in which freely handled pigment has the power to switch back and forth between abstraction and naturalism.
Steir has been experimenting with the liquidity of paint since the late 1980s. She begins by covering the canvas with great washes of color that will serve as a foil for all subsequent ...