Untitled [Landscape]

Dorothy Dehner

1947

Pen and ink with gouache

Nasher Sculpture Center

Like many artists of her generation, Dehner turned from abstraction to representation in the 1930s. Her exposure to the work of Pablo Picasso, Jacques Lipchitz, and other modern artists in Paris a decade earlier had stimulated her interest in sculpture, but she was discouraged from pursuing it by her husband at this time, sculptor David Smith. During their time together in Bolton Landing, New York, at a farm they purchased in 1929, Dehner was deeply involved in Smith’s work, offering advice and ideas. In the 1940s, drawing became her primary creative outlet. Dehner made this untitled landscape at Bolton Landing at a time when she wa