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Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

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Maria Helena Vieira da Silva

Le grand atelier (The Large Studio)

1958

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Maria Helena Vieira da Silva was one of a new wave of painters in Paris exploring abstraction after World War II. Her postwar paintings generally evoke unidentifiable architectural and urban spaces. These ambiguous locales, which employ the structure of the Cubist grid and its monochromatic palette, were often seen as alluding to the destruction of previously held aesthetic values and certainties. The suggestion of both construction and dissolution of form in Le grand atelier is a key characteristic of "art informel", the term coined by French critic Michel Tapié for the formal and thematic experimentation of postwar abstraction. With its large-scale format common to much postwar European and American abstraction, Le grand atelier refers to architecturally articulated spaces in the real world, specifically that of the artist’s studio, yet the push and pull of rectangular planes of varying sizes and repeating, vacillating structures gives the painting a sense of dynamism that evokes themes of impermanence prevalent in the wider postwar environment. [Exhibition label, 2015]

  • Artist Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (French, b. Portugal, 1908–1992)
  • Title Le grand atelier (The Large Studio)
  • Date 1958
  • Medium Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions unframed | 51 1/4 x 64 1/8 in.
  • Credit line Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard K. Weil, 1961
  • Object number WU 3960

From Picasso to Fontana: Collecting Modern and Postwar Art in the Eisendrath Years, 1960–1968
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/23/2015 - 04/19/2015

Made in France: Art from 1945 to the Present
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/17/2003 - 04/20/2003

1961
Mr. and Mrs. Richard K. Weil, St. Louis

Inscription [LR corner of canvas, written in script with gray paint:] Vieira da Silva 58

Inscription [verso UC on upper stretcher, white rectangular label] [printed in black:] ALBERT LOEB GALLERY / [text missing] 2 EAST 57TH STREET / NEW YORK, 22 N. Y. / [typewritten in black:] V. 15 VIEIRA DA SILVA / "Le Grand Atelier" 1958 / 100F

This artwork record may be incomplete or need refinement. Our staff actively researches the collection and revises records when new information is available. If you have questions or comments about this record, please contact us.

Related Content

go to Made in France: Art from 1945 to the Present page
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Exhibitions

Made in France: Art from 1945 to the Present

January 17, 2003–April 20, 2003
go to From Picasso to Fontana: Collecting Modern and Postwar Art in the Eisendrath Years, 1960–1968 page
no image
Exhibitions

From Picasso to Fontana: Collecting Modern and Postwar Art in the Eisendrath Years, 1960–1968

January 23, 2015–April 19, 2015

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