Gold Dusk

May Stevens

1997–2003

Acrylic and gold ink over color lithograph

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Having first achieved fame for her notorious 1960s-era political and feminist satires, May Stevens has more recently focused on poetic landscapes and the sea as subjects of her work. Gold Dusk is characteristic of these subdued and evocative landscape scenes, which regularly feature women in small boats gliding across bodies of water. As here, Stevens' landscapes often feature text fragments selected from the writings of some of her favorite women authors, such as British novelist Virginia Woolf or feminist theorist Julia Kristeva. Generally indecipherable, these words and phrases are metaphorical, a means of generating feelings and