13 x 13 x 11 inches / 33 x 33 x 28 cm

La Wilson was born in New York in 1924 as Mary Alice Purcell, which transformed to “La” due to a mispronunciation by her younger brother. She attended the Abbot Academy (now Phillips Academy) in Andover, Massachusetts, and Smith College a liberal arts college in Northampton, Massachusetts. Working in an assemblage manner similar to Joseph Cornell, Wilson would daily collect everyday objects—rosaries, clothespins, earrings, pencil stubs etc.—and arrange them in such a that evoke different associations for each individual viewer. Genetic Tampering (1998) is typical of her work, and through its materials and title offers the viewer a position from which to encounter her work. Wilson began showing her work in 1959 in group shows and had her first one-person show in 1967. It was not until the 1980s that her work began to gain national recognition, when she partnered with John Davis, an Akron Ohio collector, then gallerist in Hudson, New York. She won the Cleveland Arts Prize for Visual Arts in 1993 and won the top award for sculpture in the Cleveland Museum of Art May Show in the same year.

unframed / non encadrée

Mixed Media / Techniques mixtes

Signed “La Wilson 88 Genetic Tampering” on underside / Signée «La Wilson 88 Genetic Tampering» sous l'œuvre