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Cheryl Laemmle

Self-Portrait with Bottle and Cage, 1988

Description

Maker

Title

Self-Portrait with Bottle and Cage

Year

1988

Medium

Oil on canvas

Materials/Techniques

Materials

Supports

Dimensions

61 x 76.2 cm (24 x 30 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Signed verso on canvas on left half, in black pen:"To Herby and Dorothy / Happy Holidays /1988/ Self Portrait Cheryl Laemmle"

Type

Credit

The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services

Object Number

2009.59.15

Projects & Publications

Publications

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection

July 20 - December 2, 2012

Cheryl Laemmle’s mysterious, surrealistic paintings contain private stories about the artist’s inner life, often alluding to themes of melancholy, memory, and imperfection. Using personal symbolism drawn from childhood, dreams, and fairytales, this self-portrait is an allegorical still-life painting conjuring the psyche of the artist through the juxtaposition of metaphysical objects. The long, carefully painted, braided hair evokes fables of princesses in towers waiting to be set free, while the bottle and cage connote isolation and imprisonment.

The Figure

March 12, 2010 - March 3, 2011

This painting blurs the line between still-life and portraiture. Rather than portraying an accurate physical likeness, Cheryl Laemmle offers the viewer a personal vision of herself. The objects represented function symbolically to evoke childhood memories and important aspects of her past that she sees as integral to her adult persona. The faceless wooden figure, a common motif in Laemmle’s work, references the wooden figures that her grandfather would carve for her from birch trees that grew in the forest near the family home in Ishpeming, Michigan. The figure’s face is left blank except for random eye-like knotholes, perhaps symbolizing inner sight.

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is Self-Portrait with Bottle and Cage with the accession number of 2009.59.15. To request a higher resolution file, please submit an online request.