July 12, 2024

Susan Hauptman (1947–2015) was a Michigan native and artist of high esteem who experimented with both figurative and non-representational abstract forms. An alumnus of the University of Michigan’s BFA program, she later attended Wayne State University for her MFA, which she completed in 1970. Line Drawing #12 is one example from a selection of monochromatic ink gesso drawings produced by Hauptman in the early 1970s; these works are characterized by delicate lines that weave together to produce stark yet impressively animated and intimate scenes. Here, a knotted cluster seems to float high above a grounded pool of string, tethered by a single tendril. The string (perhaps itself a long, single strand) is produced by two fine lines in a layered play with positive and negative space, betraying Hauptman’s commitment to process, continuity, and detail. Each of the two clumps is somewhere between solid and ethereal, entwined in a complexity of lines that suggest solidity but also express open space. The connection between these two objects seems both fragile (because it’s a long, thin, single tendril) and yet perhaps persistent (since the tendril has several connection points on each object). The work is full of tension—weight versus buoyancy, unity versus division, stability versus turmoil—so it seems the relationship between the two tangled masses is not only spatial, but almost interpersonal. Are they pulling apart or pulling together? The entanglements come alive with personality and perspective the more one examines this work, yet their abstract nature provides a variety of entry points for viewers. The work is a snapshot of a relationship that may be at once playful and dynamic, compelling and unsettling.

It seems Hauptman’s formal experimentations through her early line drawings stimulated philosophical considerations of the nature of relationships and identity; she is most known for her haunting and contemplative self-portraits which tackle such themes as gender, beauty, and representation. Hauptman’s work has been lauded and her career successful, as she received numerous grants (including from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation), served as a Visiting Artist at several prestigious institutions (including at Harvard University, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the University of Georgia), and exhibited widely.[1]

Written by Sarah Teppen

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