{"data":{"id":"148","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":148,"topgoose_id":2893,"tms_id":148,"display_name":"Lee Bontecou","sort_name":"Bontecou Lee","display_date":"1931–2022","begin_date":"1931","end_date":"2022","biography":"\u003cp\u003eLee Bontecou’s abstract, wall-mounted\nsculptures from the late 1950s and\n1960s conjure visual associations that\nrange from the mechanical (camera lenses,\nengines, and gun barrels) to the natural\nworld (rock formations, insect shells,\nhuman orifices, wounds, and celestial black\nholes). To build these intensely physical\nand ultimately mysterious reliefs, Bontecou\nbegan by welding a steel armature\nonto which she stitched canvas salvaged\nfrom the conveyer belts of the laundry\nbeneath her Lower East Side apartment\nand later incorporated metal scraps\nand other found materials.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA large hole lined with sharp saw\nblades grins menacingly from the center of\n\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/1267\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eUntitled, 1961\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003cem\u003e,\u003c/em\u003e like a set of mechanized\nteeth. Metal spools, washers, and grommets\npuncture the surface, poised threateningly\nas if they might expel toxic gas or bullets.\nThe work embodies the anxiety of the Cold\nWar era, foretelling, as Bontecou explained\nit, what is “to come if we do not learn\nto handle and face some of the facts of war\ninside us. It is pessimistic, angry, and full\nof destruction. . . . It is the negative side of\nthe atomic age. It’s war.”\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\nBontecou was the only woman\namong a roster of notable male artists to be\nrepresented by the esteemed Leo Castelli\nGallery in the 1960s. Although her work\nfrom this period was well received, she\nwithdrew from the New York art world in the\nearly 1970s and moved to rural Pennsylvania,\nreemerging three decades later to exhibit\nan abundant body of drawings and sculpture\nthat included large-scale but achingly fragile\nmobiles made during the 1980s and 1990s.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":true,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500024833","wikidata_id":"Q276372","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:39:02.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-31T07:01:30.639-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/148/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/148/exhibitions"}}}}