Grace HartiganAmerican, 1922–2008Billboard
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Billboard” now? Collection: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Minneapolis, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
As a second generation Abstract Expressionist, Hartigan alternates between abstraction and figuration. The abstraction gives her work a powerful emotional and visual experience while the naturalistic subject matter serves as her inspiration. Hartigan describes her subjects as real, but not realistic.
Read on
Hartigan repeatedly drew from American advertising in her work because of its common imagery, two-dimensional structure, and bold stylistic simplifications. She began Billboard by arranging images from Life magazine into a collage, which she then used as her model. Here, we glimpse a smiling face above a tube of Ipana toothpaste, the neck of a wine bottle poised over a glass, a mold of lime Jell-O surrounded by fruit, and the keys of a piano. Of this melange of commercial and mechanical imagery she remarked, I have found my subject, it concerns that which is vulgar and vital in American life, and possibilities of its transcendence into the beautiful.
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Details
- Accession number
- 57.35
In the catalog
Sources
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — © Estate of Grace Hartigan
