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Stay Awake

Artist Elizabeth Murray (American, 1940-2007)

Date1989

Dimensions70 × 89 × 23 in. (177.8 × 226.1 × 58.4 cm)

MediumOil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds given by Rita Barbour Kern

Object number

2018.17

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 02A, Wolfe

Published ReferencesWexner Center for the Arts, Recent Work by Elizabeth Murray, Columbus, Ohio, Wexner Center for the Arts, 1991.

Pace Gallery, Elizabeth Murray: Painting in the 80's New York, Pace Gallery, 2017.

Schwendener, Martha and Will Heinrich, "What to See in New York Art Galleries this Week," New York Times Company December 2017.

Exhibition HistoryColumbus, Ohio, Wexner Center for the Arts, Recent Work by Elizabeth Murray, November 17, 1991-February 23, 1992.

New York, Pace Gallery, Elizabeth Murray: Painting in the 80's, November 2,2017-January 13, 2018.

Toledo Museum of Art, Everything is Rhythm: Mid-Century Art & Music, April 6, 2019-February 23, 2020.

Label Text“My paintings are often strange, and sometimes show me a part of myself—a violence and physicality that scares me. It’s not always pleasant or easy. I don’t always like it, and really when I do them it’s a journey.” – Elizabeth Murray Elizabeth Murray’s dynamic, large-scale shaped painting, which is on canvas laid on a wooden armature, depicts a warped, larger than life coffee cup. Murray is best known for bridging abstraction with representation. She composes domestic objects such as utensils, chairs, and tables, in her cartoon-like, even outrageous visual language that often explores the psychological underpinnings of domestic life. Murray’s signature style is evocative of her peers, the Chicago Imagists, which was formed by graduates of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1960s. In a period when painting was considered a serious, “high” art form, the Imagists defied artistic norms and created works that were brazen and grotesque. In that vein, Murray explores the physicality and structural possibilities of paint and canvas. Through various strategies of twisting, knotting, or collaging, she builds up her surfaces, resulting in a sculptural canvas with the composition protruding out into the gallery space and looming over viewers.