Ree Morton

In the late 1960s Ree Morton abandoned her middle-class life as a wife, mother, and nurse to become an artist. An early proponent of installation art, she experimented with nontraditional materials and integrated elements of painting and sculpture with the work’s site. Untitled (Signs of Love) is composed of a pastel-toned landscape painting and a patterned curtain made of Celastic, a material used for set designs. The painting presents a romantic, nostalgic fantasy in the literally “rosy” view out the window while the three-dimensional curtain suggests the tangible reality of daily life. With its swags, floral motifs, and pastel palette, the painting further embodies ideas about decoration, domesticity, sentimentality, and theatricality—characteristics traditionally associated with the feminine and not typically considered appropriate for serious art.