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Jay DeFeo, Geisha II, 1984/87

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March 17, 2020

Interview About Jay DeFeo in Gagosian Quarterly

Geisha II, 1984/87 Suzanne Hudson speaks with Leah Levy, executive director of The Jay DeFeo…

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February 10, 2020

Courtauld Symposium

Untitled (Study of Cave Painting), 1951-52 Jay DeFeo: A Symposium The Courtauld Institute of Art…

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the rose header

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January 8, 2020

The Rose is on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art

The Rose, 1958-66 The Rose is on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art,…

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Jay DeFeo, Untitled, c. 1974-75

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January 7, 2020

Introducing Foundation Staff

Untitled, 1976 The Jay DeFeo Foundation is pleased to introduce the staff members. Carly Sitko,…

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Repost from @whitneymuseum • To Armando Jaramill

Repost from @whitneymuseum
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To Armando Jaramillo Garcia, one of the Whitney's gallery assistants, Jay DeFeo's The Rose expresses "the essence of struggle, of trying to express your vision as it evolves without compromise.

DeFeo fought through poverty, neglect, and eventually illness to create this monumental work. She was sustained by a community of friends and artists, curators and museum directors—and without their support, The Rose wouldn't have made it to where it is now.

In conversation with Leah Levy near the end of her life, DeFeo expressed her faith in The Rose's ultimate fate: It was a work that began with visions and ended with her vision of it hanging in a museum, where she might, in another life, feel proud of it being admired." #CollectionReflection
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#JayDeFeo working on The Rose, 1960. Photograph © Burt Glinn/Magnum Photos, 2003

“Suddenly in the early ‘80s, in this changed e

“Suddenly in the early ‘80s, in this changed environment [DeFeo’s move to Oakland studio] the work was able to get very large again. And to everybody's amazement and surprise, I decided I was going to try color, without having used it with any intensity for as long as, well, some of the very early work after graduating from UC.”
- Jay DeFeo lecture at University of California, Santa Cruz, May 10, 1989
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[Jay DeFeo, Yellow roses on Jay DeFeo’s Oakland studio floor, 1983, JDF no. R2040 © 2020 The Jay DeFeo Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]
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#jaydefeo #jaydefeofoundation #nationalrosemonth

"I did quite a group of photo collages about 2 yea

"I did quite a group of photo collages about 2 years ago. They may or may not surprise people in terms of what they have come to understand about my work…I have been contemplating them & really discovering them in the time that has elapsed since then."
- Letter from Jay DeFeo to Bob Johnson, September 25, 1974
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[Jay DeFeo, Untitled, c. 1972-73, collage of gelatin silver print on undeveloped gelatin silver print photogram, 10 x 8 inches (25.4 x 20.3 cm), JDF no. E2332 © 2020 The Jay DeFeo Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]
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#jaydefeo #jaydefeofoundation #nationalrosemonth

"Delicate lilacs, sunburnt yellows, and a mossy ve

"Delicate lilacs, sunburnt yellows, and a mossy vertical line hang together over a precipice of nearly untouched paper. Made in 1980 as DeFeo’s world was changing amidst a summer respite from the demands of teaching, a difficult break-up, and an upcoming move to Oakland, the artist asserted herself with an ‘eternal triangle.’ The pointed form evolved from her Eraser series, whose molded and bent contours drew from the namesake putty erasers in her studio. Here, DeFeo grasped at the ephemeral, while hewing to observations of her surrounding environment. The tightly controlled spray of color hints at the lush, bucolic setting of her Larkspur home. Each precise mark comes together to brilliantly capture DeFeo’s sharp vision."
- Meredith George Van Dyke, Curatorial Assistant, SFMOMA
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[Jay DeFeo, “Untitled (Eternal Triangle series),” 1980, acrylic on paper, 44 3/4 x 30 1/4 inches (113.7 x 76.8 cm) © 2020 The Jay DeFeo Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]
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“It is very difficult to be anything less than s

“It is very difficult to be anything less than sentimental with a real rose. When 'The Rose' finally got its title, oh, at least a year or two after its commencement, I had no idea it was going to be named 'The Rose,' but I couldn't help but remember [a series of large drawings I made in 1958 of] representational roses. Much later I realized that I … learned a lot about the structure of the flower itself from those works."
- Jay DeFeo lecture at University of California, Santa Cruz, May 10, 1989
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[Jay DeFeo, “The Wise and Foolish Virgins,” 1958, oil, house paint, charcoal and graphite on paper mounted on canvas, 129 1/4 x 42 1/2 inches (328.3 x 108 cm) (each), JDF no. E2789A and E2789B © 2020 The Jay DeFeo Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]
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#jaydefeo #jaydefeofoundation #therose

"Usually I like to use a lot of materials on a dra

"Usually I like to use a lot of materials on a drawing. In this case, it was made toward the end of the 70s. It marked a very hard time in my life. I suddenly felt very quiet and meditative. These are tiny. They are sort of like Chinese silk in their final effect. They were done only with 9H pencil, which took forever to kind of build gradually until you got sort of a layering over a layering over a layering. Like the chains in the jewelry period, this was another experience of that nature. Very slow, meditative, certainly not commercial. I spent over three months just playing around with a 9H pencil, but it was a necessity in my life and it sort of bridged a transition between an old life and a newer life.”
- Jay DeFeo Lecture at Mills College, December 2 & 4, 1986
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[Jay DeFeo, “Untitled (9H Pencil series),” 1981, graphite on paper, 11 x 13 7/8 inches (27.9 x 35.2 cm)
JDF no. E1371 © 2020 The Jay DeFeo Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]
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June is National Rose Month. In honor of the occas

June is National Rose Month. In honor of the occasion, we will be sharing weekly posts illuminating aspects of Jay DeFeo's relationship with the flower.
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"'The Rose' is a symbol, and yet when it got to that more organic stage, it became an abstraction of a rose. It does relate very definitely to the way actual rose petals are formed and how they relate to each other in the flower."
- Smithsonian Archives of American Art Oral Interview with Jay DeFeo, January 23, 1976
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[Jay DeFeo, Untitled, 1973, gelatin silver contact print [detail], JDF no. C0137.11 © 2020 The Jay DeFeo Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]
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#jaydefeo #jaydefeofoundation #nationalrosemonth #therose

"I get very offended by the use of the words 'blac

"I get very offended by the use of the words 'black and white,' because within that very narrow range, particularly if the media is multiple, there are so many nuances going on. Even if you extend yourself between a 9H pencil and the softest pencil you can get, you're setting up a color situation there. If you throw in another black, then you've definitely got color."
- Jay DeFeo in an interview with Sidra Stich, August 18, 1988
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[Jay DeFeo’s color test sheet - pencil and graphite, date unknown, 13 7/8 x 10 7/8 inches (35.2 x 27.6 cm), JDF no. Eph0425 © 2020 The Jay DeFeo Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]
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We are pleased to introduce a new series shedding

We are pleased to introduce a new series shedding light on Jay DeFeo's studio practice and tools. Shown here is an image of DeFeo drawing in her Larkspur space in 1978.
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[Jay DeFeo, Jay DeFeo drawing in her Larkspur studio, 1978, JDF no. C0702.6 © 2020 The Jay DeFeo Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]
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#jaydefeo #jaydefeofoundation #studiotools

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