Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon Portland Community College

Untitled, (three figures) by Harry Widman

  • Title: Untitled, (three figures)
  • Artist: Harry Widman
  • Medium: Mixed media
  • Size: 22"h x 30.5"w
  • Creation date: 1996
  • Added to collection: 2007
  • Donor: Gift of Mark Andres
  • Campus: Rock Creek
  • Location: B2/2 Hallway gallery

This striking collage /brush and ink drawing, like its companion piece, "Untitled (figures)", is a study for a larger painting-- perhaps "Eternal Theme" (1996) in the collection of the Portland Art Museum or for "Exotic History" in this collection.  This collage was exhibited in a solo show of Widman works on paper in the Helzer Gallery in February 2007.  The relation of this collage to the painting reveals Widman's process of spontaneous, automatic drawing as the basis for more developed work (note the light red grid lines for scaling up this work to a larger format).  Influenced by the collages of Robert Motherwell, Widman often used this process to discover an "unknown image"  which took on emblematic and talismanic significance for the artist.