Etched Murmurs
Primary
Dorothea Tanning
(Galesburg, Illinois, 1910–New York, New York, 2012)
Place MadeSanta Monica, United States, North America
NationalityAmerican, North America
Date1984
MediumEtching
Edition Info12/20
DimensionsSheet: 19 x 15 1/4 in. (48.3 x 38.7 cm)
Plate: 11 7/8 x 9 1/8 in. (30.2 x 23.2 cm)
Plate: 11 7/8 x 9 1/8 in. (30.2 x 23.2 cm)
Credit LineBlanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Gift of Barbara and Jim Metcalf, 2024.54
Rights Statement
Collection AreaPrints and Drawings
Object number2024.54
On View
Not on viewCollection Highlight
In Dorothea Tanning’s work of the late 1960s and ’70s, the Surrealist artist shifted from the crisply rendered “allegories of a dream state” that defined her early work, to vaporous, prismatic paintings and fabric “soft sculptures” featuring abstracted bodily forms and figures, depicted in stages of metamorphosis or locked in erotic struggles. The prints and drawing shown here trace this transition in her work, with amorphous figures entangled in a dance, an embrace, or a battle. Etched Murmurs, a reprise of her 1976 painting Murmurs, features a brown figure that may represent one of Tanning’s beloved Pekingese dogs, which often stood in for the artist herself.
Exhibitions
![Sem título, do portfólio 1a Serie para assinantes [Untitled, from the portfolio 1st Series for Subscribers]](/internal/media/dispatcher/3598/thumbnail)
Anna Letycia
1965
Object number: G1971.4.5.4/8
