Artwork Page for just the two of us

Details / Information for just the two of us

Just the two of us

1982

Julia Wachtel

(American, b. 1956)
Culture
America
Medium
acrylic on canvas
Measurements
Unframed: 187.9 x 198 cm (74 x 77 15/16 in.)
Credit Line
Dorothea Wright Hamilton Fund 2014.394
Copyright
Copyright
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print
?

Did You Know?

Both figures in this painting are based on greeting card images.

Description

Emerging in the 1980s, Julia Wachtel became known for her paintings employing cartoon characters appropriated from sources as every day and relatable as greeting cards and magazines, deliberately commenting on our quickly evolving visual culture. One of Wachtel’s earliest paintings, Just the Two of Us shows two young women, one in an elaborate gown reading a letter and the other a school girl standing in front of the moon; both figures are based on images from greeting cards. That both of the female subjects are shown as desirable or sexualized is not a coincidence, speaking to the ways that representations of women have been formed by the appetites of men.
An acrylic painting features two figures with light skin tones. On the left, a woman with black hair piled high faces away against a textured red ground, her pink dress trailing long paint drips. To the right, a girl with orange pigtails stands within a luminous blue orb. She faces us wearing a red jacket, blue skirt, and striped socks, clutching a dandelion above a cluster of small yellow and white flowers.

Just the two of us

1982

Julia Wachtel

(American, b. 1956)
America

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