Artwork Page for Las Meninas

Details / Information for Las Meninas

Las Meninas

2019

Simone Leigh

(American, b. 1967)
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Culture
America
Medium
Terracotta, steel, raffia, porcelain
Measurements
Overall: 182.9 x 213.4 x 152.4 cm (72 x 84 x 60 in.)
Credit Line
Purchased with funds donated by Scott Mueller 2019.175
Copyright
© 2019 Simone Leigh. All rights reserved.
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
229A Contemporary
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Did You Know?

The hollow face is surrounded by dozens of small porcelain flowers.

Description

Las Meninas draws on traditions throughout global art and culture to address issues surrounding the female body, race, beauty, and community. The work’s skirted form conjures figures from the Spanish Golden Age painting Las Meninas (1656) by Diego Velazquez, apparel worn in the Afro-Brazilian religious tradition candomblé, and Mousgoum buildings in Cameroon. The white-glazed terracotta torso, alluding to sacred and secular traditions of body painting, leads to a faceless head, incorporating both figuration and abstraction.
A sculpture depicts a faceless person with a nude upper body and almost arms-width skirt made of raffia, a palm leaf dried into layers of light brown strips, layered in the fashion of a hoop skirt. The terracotta torso is glazed white, breasts hanging down, and hands in fists on the waist. Where the face would be, a hollow space is outlined by rings of spiral flower buds in neutral colors.

Las Meninas

2019

Simone Leigh

(American, b. 1967)
America

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