New York, No. 1
Hedda Sterne
HEDDA STERNE, 1954. OIL ON CANVAS.
The painting moves between figuration and abstraction with each look as if playing a trick on the eyes. In the lower half, the unmistakeable form of the Brooklyn Bridge comes in and out of focus, the lattice ironwork contorts in impossible, Escher-esque movement, and out of rigid design comes a breathing, living thing that confronts the viewer. The upper half of the painting has less to hold on to, a grey haze covers faint geometry that suggests a skyline rising behind the bridge. Hedda Sterne was a leading Abstract Expressionist, one of the few women in a male-dominated movement, and evident here is her mastery and subversion of the style. Rather than seeking pure emotion through form, she allows figuration to take on the feeling of the unconscious - the oppression and beauty of dense urbanity exists in the interior and exterior lives of all city dwellers and the duality is potently clear here. The work too exists across times, an homage to cityscapes and landscapes before her, and a declaration of a bold, intimidating future that is less readable than ever.