Marisol Escobar

Object Details

Date
1964
Artist
Hans Namuth, 17 Mar 1915 - 13 Oct 1990
Sitter
Marisol Escobar, 22 May 1930 - 30 Apr 2016
Exhibition Label
Marisol, who was born in Paris to Venezuelan parents, was profoundly affected by her mother’s suicide in 1941. The eleven-year-old retreated into a protective shell of silence and sustained an enigmatic, aloof persona, even after becoming a star of the New York City art scene during the 1960s. Marisol’s sculptures defy easy categorization. The life-size figures that she crafted from blocks of wood satirize middle-class American dress and behavior with the playfulness of Pop art. Yet beneath the witty surface, she probed her own identity, often incorporating plaster casts and photographs of her face to reflect her fascination with the many different “selves” we present to the world.
As Hans Namuth’s photograph suggests, Marisol was particularly attuned to the artificial masks that women adopt in compliance with social norms of “femininity” and “womanhood.” In the 1970s, she produced a series of masks that range from self-portraits to goddesses and other female archetypes.
Marisol, nacida en París de padres venezolanos, quedó sumamente afectada por el suicidio de su madre en 1941. La niña de 11 años se refugió en un caparazón de silencio y manifestó una personalidad enigmática y distante, incluso después de convertirse en una celebridad del mundo del arte neoyorquino en la década de 1960. Las esculturas de Marisol desafían la categorización fácil. Sus figuras de tamaño natural creadas con bloques de madera satirizan el vestir y la conducta de la clase media estadounidense en el estilo lúdico del arte pop. Pero bajo la ingeniosa superficie la artista indagaba su propia identidad, a menudo incorporando moldes de yeso y fotos de su rostro para plasmar su fascinación por los múltiples “yos” que presentamos al mundo.
Como sugiere la fotografía de Hans Namuth, Marisol era muy consciente de las máscaras artificiales que adoptan las mujeres para cumplir con las normas sociales de “femineidad” y lo que representa “ser mujer”. En la década de 1970 produjo una serie de máscaras que abarcan desde autorretratos hasta diosas y otros arquetipos femeninos.
Topic
Interior
Artwork
Costume\Dress Accessory\Mask
Marisol Escobar: Female
Marisol Escobar: Visual Arts\Artist\Sculptor
Portrait
See more items in
National Portrait Gallery Collection
Location
Currently not on view
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Estate of Hans Namuth
Data Source
National Portrait Gallery
Object number
NPG.95.146
Type
Photograph
Restrictions & Rights
Usage conditions apply
Copyright
© Hans Namuth Ltd.
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
Image: 32.7 × 26.5 cm (12 7/8 × 10 7/16")
Sheet: 35.4 × 27.9 cm (13 15/16 × 11")
Mat: 55.9 × 40.7 cm (22 × 16")
GUID
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/sm44da186d0-8fed-4d5a-8cac-6b319e0ddf1d
Record ID
npg_NPG.95.146