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Maker (American, 1946-1995)
Date1973
MediumEtching (black) on white wove paper
DimensionsOverall (both plates): 3 15/16 × 7 13/16 in. (10 × 19.8 cm)
Plate (each): 3 15/16 × 3 7/8 in. (10 × 9.8 cm)
Sheet: 7 7/8 × 11 in. (20 × 27.9 cm)
Credit LineGift of Dennis Adrian in memory of the artist
Object number2001.662
Object TypePrints
On View
Not on view
Like many Chicago Imagist artists of her generation, Christina Ramberg used the human figure as the main subject of her work. Usually, however, her paintings, prints and drawings examined the female form as a fragmented and highly stylized object. (See Smart Museum 2001.661, 2011.25-28.) She frequently employed the motifs of wrapping and binding expressively as decorative patterns that follow and enhance the female form, treated here as a pair of headless dressmakers’ dummies. Her style has been described as a darkly humorous and erotically sinister exploration of the “requirements” to which women subject themselves in order to make themselves desirable to male suitors.
Ramberg’s inventive modes were stimulated by a range of sources, comics and comic strips, Japanese printmaking, and the ritualistic body art of ancient and non-western tribal cultures that she is likely to have observed at Chicago’s Field Museum, within walking distance of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) where she studied. The decorative motif of luxurious well-groomed tresses also appears as a Surrealist trope of unexpected emergence in zones other than the head, but also as bizarre accoutrements. (See 1996.32p.) She printed the edition of this diptych etching with Phil Hanson at the SAIC.
Heads
Christina Ramberg
1973
Head
Christina Ramberg
1969 - 1970
False Image Decal
Christina Ramberg
1969
Sovereign
Barbara Rossi
1970
Flower-Rewolf
Suellen Rocca
1962
False Image Decal
Christina Ramberg
1969
False Image Decal
Christina Ramberg
1969
False Image Decal Envelope
Christina Ramberg
1969
Untitled #11
Suellen Rocca
1962
Untitled #11
Suellen Rocca
1962
Untitled #11
Suellen Rocca
1962
False Image Postcard
Christina Ramberg
1968