Wanda Gág’s World | Art & Artists

Mar 28–Dec 2, 2024

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"A still life is never still to me”

"A still life is never still to me”.
“My aesthetic existence teems with forms”.
“Everything I looked at cried out to be captured”.
“I am out on the hills every day now”.
“Perhaps I have never written of my sandpaper discovery”.
“There is, to me, no such thing as an empty place in the universe”.
"I spent most of my time drawing frantically”.
“I aim to make the illustrations for children’s books as much a work of art”.

An etching of a whimsical fireplace with anthropomorphic flames dancing in the hearth and shadowy wall sconces.

"A still life is never still to me”

In Gág’s prints, inanimate objects appear to wobble in space, tilting this way and that in defiance of the logic of linear perspective. Gág elaborated on her perception of space in a 1938 application for a Guggenheim fellowship grant, writing:

“To me, perspective is more than a mechanical set of rules—I see in it the potentialities for rhythmic forcefulness and even emotional significance. With form and space it is the same: a still life is never still to me, it is solidified energy—and space does not impress me as being empty.”