In the Garden.... by Doris Seidler

In the Garden.... by Doris Seidler

In the Garden....

Doris Seidler

Title

In the Garden....

 
Artist

Doris Seidler

  1912 - 2010 (biography)
Year
1951  
Technique
burin engraving & aquatint 
Image Size
11 7/8 x 9 7/8" platemark 
Signature
pencil, lower right 
Edition Size
2 of 4  
Annotations
pencil titled and dated; also inscribed: 2/4 
Reference
 
Paper
heavy, cream wove 
State
published 
Publisher
artist 
Inventory ID
19914 
Price
SOLD
Description

Doris Seidler's "In the Garden..." bears the hallmarks of British printmaker Stanley William Hayter's Atelier 17, the experimental workshop that inspired artists from Pablo Picasso to Louise Borgeois and beyond. As well, Hayter appears to have been Seidler's first formal art teacher, years after she'd started a family in England and after both Brits - refugees from Europe as Nazi Germany's invasion expanded - settled with their respective families in Manhattan.

The theme of the garden in art has roots in most ancient cultures, from Africa to the Mediterranean to the British Isles to indigenous cultures of the Americas. The cultivation of natural spaces on one’s own land is synonymous with comfort and patience, and is symbolic of life, death, and change. Since ancient Greek potters painted their vessels with scenes of the Garden of Hesperides, artists have rendered gardens as metaphor and as literal interpretation.

The Abstract Expressionist movement was no exception. Nearly every pioneer of new mediums and styles in the 20th century at some point meditated on the theme of the garden. In Doris Seidler’s In the Gardensuggestions of these historic interpretations are found in the fluid shapes and symbols of the gardenscape, including a serpent, sun, and birds. The two figures walking close to one another appear to be involved in an intimate conversation, and the viewer is invited to wonder what it may be: sweet words between two lovers, or the comforting reassurances of a Christ-like figure to his follower?