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Artworks
Betty ParsonsUntitled, 1956Acrylic on linen30h x 40w in (76.20h x 101.60w cm)BP348$ 70,000In paintings like Untitled (1956), Parsons brought an experimental approach to abstraction not tied to any single style. The vivid palette harnesses an expressive use of color applied in layers of gestural brushstrokes in a loose repetition of the canvas’s shape while the center is animated by forms in yellow and green that have been inscribed with the back of the artist’s brush. As curator Lawrence Alloway described Parsons’ work, “she is cued by color wherever she finds herself, by an evening sky, a flowering tree, a plumage, and these remain, within the format of abstract art, the basis of her work. Hers is an associative abstract art not sealed off from nature by a canon of concreteness, but infiltrated by roots, lit by the sun, and washed by the sea.” Above all, Parsons sought to capture what she referred to as the “sheer energy” of a scene or composition.
