Plant-Like

Discussion

FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

Altripp's image presents a wavy, rose-colored object that flares like a flower on one end and tapers on the other. Nearly translucent, it rests upon watery streaks of rose and blue; the pearly blackish background shows through. In 1949, Elaine de Kooning wrote about Altripp in Art News, observing that he worked in an abstract idiom where "representation is teased as softly defined forms, mobile and leisurely, wind like smoke through compositions" that suggest "natural phenomena" or "attributes," like Plant-Like . She continued: "The unstressed mystical effects that characterize this work are carried more by the tones than by the drawing [and] the atmosphere is that of night."

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