Mary Heilmann (American, born 1940). <em>Blinds</em>, 1975. Oil on canvas, overall: 72 1/4 × 48 3/4 × 1/2 in. (183.5 × 123.8 × 1.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of The Solomon Foundation, 2009.7.3. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2009.7.3_PS9.jpg)

Mary Heilmann (American, born 1940). Blinds, 1975. Oil on canvas, overall: 72 1/4 × 48 3/4 × 1/2 in. (183.5 × 123.8 × 1.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of The Solomon Foundation, 2009.7.3. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2009.7.3_PS9.jpg)

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Isn't this a great piece? I love how beautiful and visible the paint strokes are.

In the 1970s, Heilmann painted a series of works inspired by details of places she had lived and worked. That included air vents, French doors, and window blinds.

The name of the series this work is from, the "Jealousy Painting" series, is a play on the word jalousie, a colloquial French word for a time of adjustable window blind.

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Blinds

Mary Heilmann

Contemporary Art

If the Abstract Expressionists of the 1950s and 1960s painted to achieve a sublime experience that transcended the ordinary, Mary Heilmann’s work in the subsequent decade played off of this tradition by humorously grounding abstraction in everyday life. Blinds comes from a series of abstract works inspired by the artist’s immediate surroundings, such as air vents, French doors, and window blinds. The work also questions the Renaissance concept of paintings as windows into other worlds by remaining resolutely and irreverently in ours. Heilmann has said that her decision to take up painting in 1968, when most major white male critics labeled the medium “dead,” was a calculated and “antagonistic move.”

ARTIST Mary Heilmann, American, born 1940

MEDIUM Oil on canvas

DATES 1975

DIMENSIONS overall: 72 1/4 × 48 3/4 × 1/2 in. (183.5 × 123.8 × 1.3 cm) (show scale)

INSCRIPTIONS Inscribed on reverse: "Mary Heilmann/ 1975/ "Blinds"/ TOP [enclosed with up-arrow in a vertically oriented rectangle]" The entire inscription is enclosed within a drawn square, graphite (est.). Label attached to horizontal crossbar, right: "...West Broadway, New York, N.Y.10012/ Artist: Mary Heilmann/ Title Blinds Date 1975/ HSG # MH 18 Collection 1" Label attached to horizontal crossbar, left: "Holly..." (gallery name to the left of the following information) "392 West Broadway/ Artist: Mary.../ Title: / Me___oil c.../ Size 7..."..."

COLLECTIONS Contemporary Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 2009.7.3

CREDIT LINE Gift of The Solomon Foundation

EXHIBITIONS

Out of Place: A Feminist Look at the Collection

MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view

CAPTION Mary Heilmann (American, born 1940). Blinds, 1975. Oil on canvas, overall: 72 1/4 × 48 3/4 × 1/2 in. (183.5 × 123.8 × 1.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of The Solomon Foundation, 2009.7.3. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2009.7.3_PS9.jpg)

IMAGE overall, 2009.7.3_PS9.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2019

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