Inward Longing
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Inward Longing
Maker
Elaine Lustig Cohen
(b. 1927, Jersey City, New Jersey – d. 2016, New York, New York)
Date1967
MediumAcrylic on canvas
Dimensionsoverall: 50 in. x 50 in. (127 cm x 127 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase, Erna Bottigheimer Sands (Class of 1929) Art Acquisition Fund
Object number2016.4
Status
Not on viewRightsCopyright is retained in accordance with U.S. Copyright laws
Photo creditDavis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
More InformationCohen’s award-winning public career as a graphic designer is matched by her equally prolific, although much more private, career as a painter. A pioneer in the field of architectural identification—“branding”—in the 1950s and ’60s, she created proprietary typefaces and signage for buildings by modernist architects Philip Johnson and Eero Saarinen. Inward Longing speaks the language of geometric abstraction, using bold, bright colors to graphic effect and creating forms through the dynamic pull between positive and negative space. Flat paint handling and uniform color contribute to the picture’s graphic punch: the composition centers on the intersection of strong diagonal vectors, evoking the elegant architectural and design vocabulary of mid-twentieth-century modernism.