{"data":{"id":"822","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":822,"topgoose_id":11049,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":822,"title":"The Wait","display_artist_text":"Edward Kienholz","display_date":"1964–1965","accession_number":"66.49a-k","dimensions":"Overall: 80 × 160 × 84 in. (203.2 × 406.4 × 213.4 cm)","medium":"Tableau: wood, fabric, polyester resin, flock, metal, bones, glass, paper, leather, varnish, gelatin silver prints, taxidermed cat, live parakeet, wicker and plastic","department":"collection","classification":"Sculpture","credit_line":"Gift of the Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation, Inc.","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eEdward Kienholz, \u003cem\u003eThe Wait\u003c/em\u003e, 1964–1965. Tableau: wood, fabric, polyester resin, flock, metal, bones, glass, paper, leather, varnish, gelatin silver prints, taxidermed cat, live parakeet, wicker and plastic, overall: 80 × 160 × 84 in. (203.2 × 406.4 × 213.4 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of the Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation, Inc. 66.49a-k. © Nancy Reddin Kienholz\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Wait\u003c/i\u003e illuminates the poignancy of passing time and the sorrowful isolation of the elderly in a life-size domestic tableau. The figure of an old woman, constructed of cow bones and encased in plastic coating, clutches a taxidermied cat and sits beneath a framed portrait of a young man who was presumably her beloved. In place of her face is a glass jar with a photograph of a young, attractive woman on the front and a cow skull set inside. She wears a necklace of glass canning jars containing crosses and gold figurines that represent her memories as imagined by the artist: “her childhood on a farm and move on to girlhood, waiting for her man, marriage, bearing children, being loved, wars, family, death and then senility, where everything becomes a hodgepodge.” She awaits her imminent death to the song of a live parakeet in a nearby cage, a disparity that renders the melancholy of the woman’s situation all the more evident.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"A seated cloth mannequin wearing layered clothing sits in an armchair surrounded by family photos and a birdcage.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T16:39:09.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:00:34.989-05:00","images":[{"id":93242,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/822/66_49a-k_vw1_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"697","type":"artist"}]}}}}