Peeking in the artist's diary
Julie Heffernan’s “Self Portrait as Booty”
Before there is the figure, there is the figure drawing. Whether the final product is realistic, surreal or abstract, or, as in the case of Julie Heffernan’s Hieronymus Bosch-esque portraiture, perhaps a bit of the first two, it all begins with the sketchbook. Private(dis)play, the current exhibition at the New York Academy of Art, focuses on the first stages of the work of 20 contemporary American artists by giving us a peek into their private journals.
The artist’s sketchbook has long been a source of fascination. A 6″x9″ red sketchbook owned by Picasso was stolen from the Picasso Museum in Paris last year. Its estimated value was $11 million at the time of the theft. “Unlike a painting,” his family said, “it has scientific value.” There is something about a small, private notebook, worked over and cherished by the artist that is somehow more valuable than a painting, which anyone can see.
private(dis)play at the New York Academy of Art, January 27 – February 28, 2010.
