Richard Lindner, "Standing Woman"
June 26, 2018
Richard Lindner, Standing Woman (Plate 4), 1971. Serigraph.
The dominating and flamboyant yet scandalous figures of Richard Lindner made them memorable across the art-world of the 20th century. Having lived his youth in Germany during the 1920s, then later Paris and eventually his adulthood in New York, Lindner found inspiration within the enigmatic characters of the metropolitan terrain. When he moved to New York in the 1940s, he met an income by working for major publications such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar as a graphic designer/illustrator. It was not until his 50s had he felt a longing for something more, thus quitting his design and illustration career to dedicate himself to painting full time. His oeuvre since reflects his history, picking up on remnants from his journey around Europe and New York. More likely than not stemming from the influence of the New Objectivity movement in Berlin, Lindner’s paintings are fascinated with the ‘crooked’ or the ‘criminal,’ bringing to canvas thugs, prostitutes, performers and more, painted in bold, vibrant colors. With an interest in the human figure, Lindner uses unusual composition and blocks to conceive extraordinary beings.
Standing Woman (Plate 4) derives from a series titled Shoot. It consists of a total of five serigraphs that is concerned with the criminal and the bizarre. Standing Woman is one of two plates that depict women in the series. Here, our protagonist’s figure consumes the composition whole, from top to bottom. Her pink, muscular legs outweigh her torso and head together. Her core is made up of more unusual, almost machine-like shapes in distorted proportions. The viewer may make out a gun-holster strapped to her body, granting a power and hostility to a female, a depiction that has always remained taboo throughout art history. This serigraph in the Wayne State Art Collection is number 39 in a limited edition of 100 signed. It was gifted to the Art Collection by Dr. John M. Rainey Jr.
Written by Danielle Cervera Bidigare