Cops and Headlights V
1 of 3
Caption
Jane Dickson American, born 1952. Cops and Headlights V, 1991. Oil on canvas, 89 × 37 × 1 3/4 in. (226.1 × 94 × 4.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchase gift of Dr. Bertram H. Schaffner, 1993.122. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1993.122_SL1.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
Cops and Headlights V
Date
1991
Medium
Oil on canvas
Classification
Dimensions
89 × 37 × 1 3/4 in. (226.1 × 94 × 4.4 cm)
Signatures
Signed verso, lower right: "JD '91"
Credit Line
Purchase gift of Dr. Bertram H. Schaffner
Accession Number
1993.122
Rights
© artist or artist's estate
The Brooklyn Museum holds a non-exclusive license to reproduce images of this work of art from the rights holder named here. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org. If you wish to contact the rights holder for this work, please email copyright@brooklynmuseum.org and we will assist if we can.
Frequent Art Questions
What's the story behind Jane Dickson's "Cops and Headlights V"?
The artist Jane Dickson lived in Times Square in the 1980s and many of her paintings depict the scenes which she saw out of her studio window. At the time, the crime rates were still very high in Manhattan, so she would have seen plenty of police activity nearby. She creates a feeling of suspense by giving us a dramatic viewpoint and a steep, narrow composition. Plus, we can't see the faces of the police and bystanders, and we're not sure exactly what is happening -- all of which creates a feeling of suspense. It's almost like a scene from a movie. Dickson has said, "I use paintings to deal with things I'm afraid of."I really like this painting - is there any special inspiration behind the subject?
This work is part of a whole series of night scenes painted by the artist of things she saw out the window of her Times Square painting studio.That's interesting, thanks!Tell me about this!
The artist, Jane Dickson, belonged to a generation of artists working in Manhattan's cheaper (and often more dangerous) neighborhoods in the 1980s. Her subject matter includes the sensory overload of city life and the un-beautiful edges and corners of America's urban and suburban environments. This was painted as a view out of the window of her Manhattan studio.Jane Dickson has said of her work: "A wary observer of necessity, I paint to locate baseline reality within an unstable world. Child of immigrants, I have enlisted painting in my life-long study of American-ness to examine its cultural pivot points, shifting parameters and anomalies."I am wondering about Jane Dicksons biography and what kind of art she typically makes.
Dickson was born in Chicago and got her BFA from Harvard. She moved to NYC in her 20s where she worked designing computer animation for NYC billboards. She debuted her first paintings in the 1980s and they featured depictions of strippers, grasping couples on the sidewalk and crime suspects getting frisked against police cars.She frequently works with unusual surfaces such as Astroturf, sandpaper, vinyl, or carpet to exploit the implicit references and the textural possibilities these materials offer. What else would you like to know?I think we're good. That's super helpful, thank you.You're welcome! Let us know if you have more questions.
Have information?
Have information about an artwork? Contact us at
