The art work, along with two other golden
totemic sculptures on view (The Figure of the Question of Death and The Figure of the Interrogative Philosophy), illuminate Byars» interest in the transient experience of beauty and evoke simplified versions of the human form and the physical manifestation of «question.»
The 40 works
on view date from the early 1960s, when she first developed the
totemic sculptures in painted wood for which she is best known, to the last years of her life.
The works
on view here include expansive canvases by Helen Frankenthaler (American, 1928 — 2011), Joan Mitchell (American, 1925 — 1992), and Lee Krasner (American, 1908 — 1984); intimate collages
on paper by Anne Ryan (American, 1925 — 1992); a major bronze
sculpture by Dorothy Dehner (American, 1901 — 1994); and a
totemic wood
sculpture by Louise Bourgeois (American, born France.