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Artworks
Betty ParsonsUntitled, c.1976Gouache on paper23.25h x 18w in (59.05h x 45.72w cm)BP404$20,000Untitled (c. 1976) comes from one of the more than 200 notebooks and sketchbooks that Parsons filled over the course of her career, and at its top edge bears the line of holes characteristic of spiral binding. The sketchbook was Parsons’ constant travel companion and a fundamental part of her artmaking practice. She frequently took inspiration in the natural world and, as her biographer Lee Hall has described, “Never once did [Parsons] record an experience… according to its appearance alone; rather, as she recorded, she simultaneously interpreted her subject, probed for and usually found its essence.” In this example, Parsons was likely observing the waters of the Long Island Sound, onto which her studio overlooked. After applying color in washes of blue, orange, and green, Parsons used the back of her paintbrush to etch into the wet gouache.
