Kay WalkingStick

Gray Apron
1974

Not on view

Date
1974

Classification
Paintings

Medium
Acrylic on canvas

Dimensions
Overall: 52 1/8 × 50in. (132.4 × 127 cm)

Accession number
P.2022.1

Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Promised gift of the Gochman Family and in honor of Forge Project, traditional lands of the Muh-he-con-ne-ok

Rights and reproductions
© artist or artist’s estate

API
artworks/65691

Visual description

 Kay WalkingStick,Gray Apron, 1974.Gray Apronis an acrylic painting on canvas. The painting measures 52 inches tall by 50 inches wide. The background of the painting, visible around the canvas’s edges, contains short, radial bursts of multicolored marks on a soft gray/blue background almost like hand marks. Squarely in the foreground, a saturated gray apron with a bluish tint hangs, outstretched, from a thinly painted equilateral triangle. The apron’s neck strap hangs from the vertex of the triangle; the back straps of the apron hang from both sides of the triangle’s base. As if in preparation for wear, the apron stretches wide across the canvas. While the apron depicts small, soft folds in its fabric, the garment does not drape on a body, and the garment is relatively flattened.

This painting moves away from simply a representation of an apron, to incorporate the act of artmaking itself. While the apron is represented as an object, white-gray-blue and unstained, the colorful brush strokes and markings moving from behind might connote a messy paint space.





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