Virginia Admiral
Born 1915, The Dalles, Oregon; died 2000, New York
Astrazione No. 1 (Abstraction No. 1)
1941
Oil on canvas
Gift of Peggy Guggenheim, 1966
To make Abstraction No. 1, Admiral carefully rendered abstracted shapes and forms, alternately scraping away delicate lines or creating patterns with fine brushwork, against a thick pink ground. A writer and artist, Admiral was active in the San Francisco poetry scene in the 1930s alongside peers including Robert Duncan, with whom she published the single-issue magazine Epitaph (1928), which developed into The Experimental Review. Admiral moved to New York in 1940 and studied at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts. There, she created works such as this that blend figuration and abstraction, creating compelling connections between recognizable and enigmatic objects with built-up layers.
