Artwork Page for Musical Chairs

Details / Information for Musical Chairs

Musical Chairs

1951

Dorothea Tanning

(American, 1910–2012)
Culture
America
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
116.2 x 88.9 cm (45 3/4 x 35 in.)
Credit Line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 2024.68
Copyright
© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
226B American Modern
Print
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Did You Know?

Artist Dorothea Tanning lived to be 101 years old.

Description

In this surreal composition, a pre-adolescent girl—whose mismatched clothing suggests she has been playing dress-up—interrupts her game of musical chairs by daydreaming into a realm where imagination reigns free. Defying logic, she sinks into a sea of fabric that in turn swells up behind her into a haphazard arrangement of folds. Artist Dorothea Tanning started her career as a fashion illustrator, launching a lifelong interest in the expressive qualities of cloth.
A vertically oriented abstract oil painting depicts a girl with light skin tone lurching forward from the lower right out of a red-cushioned, straight-backed chair and into the rippling folds and abstract shapes of twisting fabric in shades of golden-yellow. The person wears a black dress fringed in white lace, a red sash around the waist and a white cap over their hair. Their arms sink into the fabric and they curve their back up, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. Another chair with a pink cushion sinks into the folds above and left.

Musical Chairs

1951

Dorothea Tanning

(American, 1910–2012)
America

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