Jay DeFeo was one of the cornerstones of the San Francisco Bay Area art scene beginning in the 1950s. She is best known for The Rose, to which she devoted herself exclusively from 1958–66. After completion, The Rose was shown at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1968. DeFeo continued to make art work and maintain an active studio practice throughout the latter half of the twentieth century until she succumbed to lung cancer in 1989.
Taking its title from Greek mythology, Daphne appears to grow abstracted branches and roots before the viewers’ very eyes as thousands of delicate long strokes of oil, pencil, and charcoal reach the entire length of this vertical composition.
The drawing on paper is mounted to a larger, black-painted canvas. This layering creates a surface within a surface, but also plays with the positive and negative space of the art work. The tear in the bottom right corner is an intentional allusion to the fact that part of the composition is comprised of paper.
The surface takes on an uneven veneer because of the materials used. DeFeo believed that texture and palette have an inverse relationship, and here in Daphne, this viewpoint is evidenced in the way that only tones of black and white pigments are obsessively layered. Rather than adding color for shading or decoration, she built up surface material to achieve tonal gradations.
Details
- Artist Name: Jay DeFeo (American, 1929-1989)
- Title: Daphne
- Date: 1958
- Medium: Oil, pencil and charcoal on paper mounted on canvas
- Dimensions: comp: 106 x 42 in. (269.2 x 106.7 cm); sheet: 125 3/4 x 47 3/4 in. (318.8 x 121.3 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of Mr. Sam Francis
- Accession Number: P.1965.008
- Copyright: © The Jay DeFeo Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object Information
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1965-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, 1975.
16 Americans
- Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), 1959-12-16 to 1960-02-14
Nine California Artists
- Pasadena, Pasadena Art Museum, 1966-07-06 to 1966-12-02
Radical Past: Contemporary Art and Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974
- Norton Simon Museum, 1999-02-07 to 1999-06-06
- Armory Center for the Arts, 1999-02-07 to 1999-04-11
- Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, Calif.), 1999-02-07 to 1999-04-25
- Sixteen Americans, 1959, p. 12
- Armory Center for the Arts/Art Center College of Design, Radical Past: Contemporary Art & Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974, 1999, p. 33
Image reproduction permission may be granted for scholarly or arts related commercial use. All image requests, regardless of their intended purpose, should be submitted via the reproduction request form.
Images may be protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights. Additional permission may be required.
Please allow up to four weeks for your request to be reviewed. Approved requests for the reproduction of an image will receive a contract detailing all fees and conditions of use of the image. Upon receipt of both the signed contract and full payment, the Office of Rights and Reproductions will provide the image. A complimentary copy of the published material must be provided to the Norton Simon Museum.