2021.73.108
untitled
Artist
Anne Ryan
(1899 - 1954, Morristown, NJ)
Title
untitled
Creation Date
n.d.
Century
20th century
Dimensions
15 1/8 x 11 3/4 in. (38.42 x 29.85 cm)
Object Type
collage
Creation Place
North America, United States
Medium and Support
collage on paper
Credit Line
Bequest of Hilton and Esta Kramer
Copyright
This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s
Copyright Terms and Conditions.
Accession Number
2021.73.108
Anne Ryan was an American novelist, poet, and self-taught artist who worked in painting, printmaking, and collage. In the 1930s, Ryan moved to Greenwich Village and comingled with artists such as Hans Hoffmann and Tony Smith, who encouraged her to paint. She did not begin creating visual art in earnest until 1941, when she joined the printmaking workshop Atelier 17 and made woodcuts, monotypes, and intaglios featuring semi-abstract figures and rich, layered surface textures. Ryan transformed her practice in 1948 after seeing German artist Karl Schittwers’ collages, which impressed her with their tactility and the integration of complex abstract forms into a condensed space. From then until her death six years later, Ryan created nearly four hundred small-scale collages incorporating fabric, found media, and hand-made paper. In these exampl es, Ryan creates linear compositions of woven fabrics and textured papers, their frayed and sometimes torn edges evoking the gestures of Abstract Expressionism, a movement with which she was associated.
This label was shared with two other Anne Ryan collages in the exhibition, 2017.73.109 and 2017.73.110
