Untitled (Circus Series)
Ida Kohlmeyer
Artwork
Fantasy No. 2
1912-1997
Oil on canvas
58 in x 50 1/2 in
1964
Label:
A distinctive voice in American art, New Orleans native Ida Kohlmeyer experienced a “great awakening” after studying with Hans Hofmann and Mark Rothko. Yet, as a fervent individualist, she sought to disassociate from such apparent influences, a spell broken only when she began to incorporate the circle as a generative and narrative form.
With this painting, like others of the period, Kohlmeyer introduces the pictographic vocabulary of crosses, clouds, grids, and vessels that would become her signature style in the 1970s. Painted during a transitional period in Kohlmeyer’s career, Fantasy No. 2 marks the moment when she left her position as a painting instructor at Newcomb College in 1964 and built a studio in her suburban Louisiana backyard.
As Published In:
Central to Their Lives: Southern Women Artists in the Johnson Collection, 2018
As Exhibited In:
Our Own Work, Our Own Way, Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, PA, February 9–May 18, 2025
Abstract Perspectives in Mid-Century Art, University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ, September 11, 2022–April 8, 2023
Central to Their Lives: Southern Women Artists in the Johnson Collection, Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA, June 30–October 23, 2018, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, November 16, 2018–January 20, 2019, Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV, March 2–June 30, 2019, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, TN, July 28–October 13, 2019, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC, January 1–August 9, 2020, Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC, September 7–December 18, 2020, Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA, February 6–July 18, 2021
Life is But a Dream: Explorations of Surreality in Southern Art, TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, SC, September 19–November 27, 2013
Other Artworks by This Artist
Rebus
Ida Kohlmeyer