Joyce Wieland, Nude with Blue Eyes, ca. 1985,
oil on canvas, 33.5 in x 32 in,
signed, titled and dated verso.
Price: $13,400.00

“I think of Canada as female” the artist commented in 1971. “All the art I have been doing is about Canada.” The feminist revelation for Joyce Wieland was recognized as early as 1960, and identified in her abstract stained canvases containing imagery of wombs and cycles that Wieland later described as her “Sex Poetry” paintings. However, Toronto’s conservatism of the late 1950s and early 1960s persuaded Wieland to be somewhat quiet about the nature of these early canvases. Interestingly, Wieland was far ahead of the new feminist movement that emerged internationally in the early seventies.1

In “Nude With Blue Eyes” (reproduced above), we experience the unique expressions of Joyce Wieland’s goddesses in nature, incorporating mythological ideas, nature and growth, calmness and struggle. “Nude with Blue Eyes” is painted with such finesse and exuberance, the perfect dapples of paint and colour dancing across the paint surface to create a sublime garden, that seems to have beared the creation of this beautiful blue eyed mythological being.

Joyce Wieland’s art and films have been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions across Canada, including retrospective exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1968 and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa in 1971. Joyce Wieland’s films have been shown as early as 1967 at the Boston Museum of Contemporary Art, and in 1968 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. During the artist’s lifetime her multi-media artworks have been included in numerous group exhibitions in Canada, United States and Europe. Joyce Wieland, ( 1931 – 1998), has been recognized as one of the great Canadian artists of the twentieth century.

James Rottman Fine Art carries a significant inventory of historical artworks by Joyce Wieland. Do not hesitate to contact us with inquiries regarding this artwork or other works by Joyce Wieland.

Credits:
1Lucy Lippard, Joyce Wieland, Art Gallery of Ontario, Key Porter Books, 1987, pg.’s 1,2,4 and 5.