Elizabeth Bishop, Artist and Curator

Just after we arrived in New York City last weekend (well, just after lunch at Blossom, a spicy vegan hipster restaurant [is that redundant?]), we headed over to an exhibit on Elizabeth Bishop that I've been dying to see. "We" included Francisco and our two lovely, exuberant and colorful hosts.

The Bishop exhibit was in one small room of the Tibor de Nagy Gallery (I think the gallery itself was only two rooms). It was a tiny exhibit, with excellent explanations of most of the pieces on the wall. It contained paintings by Bishop herself, as well as paintings that were in her family, and other artworks that she picked up during her many travels.

It's hard to explain this, but Bishop's paintings, quite possibly more than any other paintings I've seen, reward viewing in person. They just really don't look like the photographs of her paintings. The photographs of her paintings look flat and size-less. In real life, her paintings are extraordinarily delicate--they are painted on very thin, almost translucent paper. The paper is mounted on other, stronger paper. The paper curls slightly and gathers in curves, like thin paper is wont to do. The paintings are mostly quite small, the kind of paintings that I love most, where you have to get close to the picture to examine it. Bishop's brush stroke outlines are bold and blotchy on the thin paper, but also shaky. The colors in her paintings look like watercolors--they fill in the approximate space that they're supposed to, sometimes bleeding outside of the lines.



This one says, "Happy Birthday," in the top left.



Here is the desk that she used in Brazil in front of some paintings (I was surprised at how large and rustic this desk is).




This reminds me of the picture of flowers associated with Emily Dickinson (I think that her brother's mistress painted them for her).




This picture, painted for a lover, places Baedeker's Northern Italy beside some pansies, bringing up themes of travel and home, like the poem, "Questions of Travel." Also note the tablecloth's unfinished bottom (pretty typical of her paintings).


I like the irony: the powerlines look like a light from heaven shining on the church.


Bishop not only painted, but also put together these boxes, inspired by Joseph Cornell. This one deals with infant mortality in Brazil.


This is her reflection on several lines from an Octavio Paz poem she translated (and which was dedicated to Joseph Cornell):

A comb is a harp strummed by the glance
of a little girl
born dumb.



These next pictures showcase some of the art she collected.


This birdcage, of course, brings to mind the birdcage in "Questions of Travel."


(The Economist reviews the exhibit here.)


(picture, picture)