2009.92.1

Summer 1980
summer 1980
94 in HIGH x 78 in WIDE
(238.76 cm HIGH x 198.12 cm WIDE)
Gift of Mr. Byron R. Meyer
2009.92.1

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, "Frank Lobdell: Paintings and Monotypes," January 20 - March 27, 1983. (Catalog published. Work reproduced on p. 27 with erroneous title of Spring 1978. An errata sheet corrected the title to Summer 1980.)

This is an oil painting on canvas with an abstract composition. A blue stripe appears along the right side and curves slightly inward at bottom. Jagged black lines appear against a mottled light-colored background at bottom left and at center. Several smaller linear marks in red and other colors are visible over the surface.

According to Peter Boswell in his essay "Frank Lobdell: The Evolution of His Symbols" (SFMOMA, "Frank Lobdell: Painting and Monotypes," 1978), p. 22, Lobdell's previous abstracted figurative symbols become more "schematized" in paintings such as "Summer 1980." Boswell writes: "Even though these forms are no longer openly figural, there is still something about them that is engagingly human: their solitude, their relative insignificance amidst the larger and more powerful forms and forces which surround them; and the curious stolidity with which they perch themselves on even the most tenuous roost.... Although it is tempting to think of these paintings in terms of 'outer' space, they are in fact representative of a distinctly 'inner,' or psychological space. As in dreams or visions, there is no consistency of either space or form."

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