FILTER RESULTS × Close
by Artist (113)
by Century (4)
by Country (2)
by Object Type (13)
by Period (2)
Skip to Content
NEHMA logo
Showing 19 of 135

Print this page
Image of Facade

Jules Engel

American
(1909–2003)

Facade
1950

Gouache and watercolor on paper
24.125 x 30.875 x 0.875 in.
Gift of the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation
1992.36

Well known for his work in experimental film, Jules Engel was a multifaceted artist who enjoyed a long and successful career as a painter, film animator, constructivist sculptor and, in later years, as the founding chair of the experimental animation department at California Institute of the Arts.

Committed to geometric abstraction, Engel deployed hard-edge, nonobjective shapes in ways that often suggest architectonic scenarios. Such is the case of Façade, in which crystalline planes outlined in black put one in mind of glass-paneled windows and doors opening unto a jam-packed cityscape. In it one spies a tall, dark building with windows aglow beside streets and freestanding walls that plunge dramatically into space. Meanwhile, splintered lines, checkerboard patterns, and strings of pinched diamonds that drift through the air enliven the scene and generate sensations of movement, which is not surprising in light of Engel’s concurrent work in film. Indeed, with its sequence of transparent panes that progress across the field, Façade reflects a cinematic sensibility, evoking tracking shots or successive frames in a movie reel.

Yet despite its complex dynamics, the composition sustains a formal cohesion, fostered by a pale blue wash that pervades the field like vaporous mist on a foggy day. At the same time, a white disc in a blue polygonal “sky” serves as a focal point, offering the wandering eye a place to rest. Beneath it a strange, gangly, flat-footed figure, with a lozenge torso and upraised arms that cradle the moon, draws our attention and prompts speculation. Is it a schematic person—a descendant, perhaps, of the silhouette characters in early experimental films—and could it be that the artist inserted it into this seemingly purist abstraction to jolt expectations, spark ideation, and thereby challenge complacent sight?

Susan Ehrlich

Keywords
Click a term to view the records with the same keyword
This object has the following keywords:
abstraction, biomorphic, blue, brown, checker pattern*, geometric, geometric abstraction, gouache, gray, paper, watercolor, white

Exhibition List
This object was included in the following exhibitions:

Also found in
Click a portfolio name to view all the objects in that portfolio
This object is a member of the following portfolios:
Thumbnail image of Collecting on the Edge
Collecting on the Edge
Thumbnail image of Collecting on the Edge Part II
Collecting on the Edge Part II
Thumbnail image of Drawings
Drawings

Your current search criteria is: Exhibitions is "Collecting on the Edge Part II".





This site facilitates access to the art and artifact collections by providing digitally searchable records for thousands objects. The information on these pages is not definitive or comprehensive. We are regularly adding artworks and updating research online. We welcome your comments.