Essay
In 1972, Nancy Graves stopped making sculpture, and opted for the medium of paint, and one she was even less familiar with: prints. At the time, she made many different series of works, all with rather similar technique, but depicting different aspects of nature or science. These included her Camouflage Series, a suite of paintings done in a style similar to pointillism that, through a trick of the eye, conceal or show some particular scene depending on the viewer’s perception. One of the series of prints Graves made in 1972 used the same pointillist technique but with a different focus. This series was her Lunar Series, or, more properly titled, the series of Lithographs Based on Geologic Maps of Lunar Orbiter and Apollo Landing Sites of which VIII Geologic Map of the Sinus Iridium Quadrangle of the Moon is part.
The prints in the Lunar Series were the first print series Graves made during her career as an artist. She had little to no interest in printmaking during graduate school at Yale. But in the early 1970s, she was invited by Jack Lemon, the founder of Landfall Press, to work on making lithographs. In school, Graves had been averse to making prints because she found it tedious and indirect, but by the time she started working at Landfall, she felt she “had the time to devote to printmaking” (Padon 41).
This series of prints was based on drawings Graves made by copying, with varying degrees of accuracy, geologic maps of the surface of the Earth’s moon. After ordering maps from NASA in 1971, Graves set to work copying them with her own interpretations. The maps that Graves used in making the Lunar Series were ones made in preparation for the Apollo space missions, beginning in 1968. The subject matter of Graves’ Lunar Series is closely tied to its historical context, as it was made just a few years after man walked on the moon. This was, and still is, a momentous event in American history.
However, if a viewer didn’t know the name of a work in the Lunar Series, they would not know the meaning of the different colors or shapes. They would not know the extent to which Graves was influenced by her time. The way Graves created this work made it completely abstract. But, at the same time, it stayed representational in the sense that it looked quite a bit like the actual geologic map Graves based it on. A viewer would not likely be able to tell that they were looking at a map, unless they knew the background to the piece. “Appropriating map imagery” (Padon 15) was a way for Graves to play with the perception of space, in a way that hadn’t been done before. Maps, to Graves, were “abstract [concepts] of space” (Padon 42), and she was interested in finding ways of illustrating those concepts. Before creating the Lunar Series lithographs, Graves made a great number of drawings and paintings “related to remote geographic regions” (Padon 52) -- the ocean floor and Antarctica being just a few. She based these works on maps, again, because of her interest in the different perceptions of space they give.
The prints in the Lunar Series depict, more or less, different regions of the moon. They are depicted in vibrant colors, and with small dots. To create these lithographs, Graves drew the dots directly on sheets of Mylar, and then transferred them to light-sensitive plates of aluminum. She experimented with different papers and techniques to create different spatial effects (Padon 42).
Number VIII, the lithograph of this series in Grinnell College’s collection, depicts the Sinus Iridium Quadrangle of the Moon, as the title indicates. The colors Graves used in this particular print, from first to last (or bottom to top layer) are as follows: gray, light orange, pink, green, yellow, blue violet, red violet, and black. All the colors except for black are applied in rather uniform dots. The colors gray and pink are featured the most, in large, sweeping, curvy forms. Dots of other colors (save black) form small circles or accent edges of different curves of gray or pink ink. If a viewer knows this is a geologic map, they could interpret the grey or pink as large, uniform areas of the moon’s surface, while the other colors of ink could indicate craters, mountains or other geographic formations. Still, this is not apparent unless one knows the subject of the print.
The black seems to sit on top of all the other colors, which, in the context of the map, could mean they are the highest points, or that they aren’t part of the geology of the moon at all. Instead, they are most likely a human overlay. The lithographs “[retain] much of the coloration of the original maps” (Padon 17), so these black lines and smaller dots were most likely important parts of these maps. But Graves took away any indication of scientific meanings of color, and she took away legends and labels. The lithographs are more a play on spatial relationships and color than they are a depiction of the moon’s surface.
The obscuring of actual scientific meaning or accuracy is a common theme in Graves’ work. With her first exhibited work, Camels, the shape and form are obvious but the material and repetition of form take away the scientific quality of those animals. Graves would take the obscuring of forms even further five years after making the Lunar Series. In her Synecdoche Series, she reduced the lines and forms of the Lunar Series to simple lines and light washes of color. Graves referred to the Synecdoche Series as the “bare bones” (Padon 42) of the Lunar Series. The work that corresponded to VIII Geologic Map of the Sinus Iridium Quadrangle of the Moon is named Saille (Padon 64), and is essentially the outline of one shape in the original lithograph and a few secondary lines (Padon 19). The connection between the two works is almost indistinguishable.
With the Synecdoche Series, Graves reinterpreted her own work. It was in the same way she had reinterpreted things such as maps of the Moon’s surface or the shape of a camel’s body. She was using new techniques to make innovative pieces. Graves found inventive ways to present space and color. The Lunar Series was done early in Graves’ career, but it exemplifies her interest in experimentation and the innovative ways she could, and would, interpret many different ideas.
-M.G.
*This piece has been catalogued in the Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College Art Collection as VIII of Series on Geologic Maps of Lunar Orbiter and Apollo Landing Sites.
Sources
Hughes, Robert. "Nancy Graves: An Introduction." The Sculpture of Nancy
Graves: a Catalogue Raisonné. New York: Hudson Hills in Association with the Fort Worth Art Museum, 1987.
Padon, Thomas. Nancy Graves: Excavations in Print: A Catalogue Raisonné.
New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1996.
Biography
Nancy Graves was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in December of 1939. She is arguably most well known for her work in sculpture; however, she focused her studies in graduate school on painting. In addition, Graves made a number of prints, including lithographs, during her lifetime. Though Graves died when she was only 45 years old, she was prolific in all of these media.
Nancy Graves received a bachelor’s degree from Vassar College in English Literature, but what she really, always, had wanted to do was study art. After graduating from Vassar, she moved on to graduate school in the School of Art and Architecture at Yale, where she learned what she would need to become an artist (Padon 35).
The introduction to an overview of Graves’ work simply states “All Nancy Graves sculpture is about nature” (Hughes 15). But that idea of nature comes in many different forms, as Graves’ work shows us. She focuses on different subjects: botany, paleontology, astronomy, anatomy, and so on. Her “art is wonderfully inclusive” (Hughes 15) using many different types of objects and materials to create strange but intriguing and at times very beautiful pieces. Graves liked to experiment and it is apparent in her work.
Graves first exhibited her work in 1969, with her sculptures Camels, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The sculptures were rather simple in form, following very closely the shapes of real camels’ bodies. But the sculptures were not simple in composition; they were made of wood, steel, burlap, polyurethane, animal skin, wax, acrylic, oil paint, and fiberglass. The Camels exemplified Graves’ interest in nature, as well as her experimentation with material and form.
Four years later, in 1972, Graves stopped making sculpture, and opted for painting and printmaking for a time. Graves had disliked printmaking in graduate school at Yale, thinking it tedious and too indirect an art form. She was much more interested in sculpture at first because it provided a way for her to “break out on [her] own terms” (Padon 36). However, Graves was interested in experimentation in new art forms because of the different unique statements she could make with new media.
In 1972, Graves made paintings and prints that were based mostly on abstracting map imagery. During this year, she created a series of paintings, as well as lithographs based on images from the Lunar Orbiter, maps made of different portions of the moon, which were originally used for the Apollo space missions, dating to the 1960s and early 1970s. She was exhibiting her interest in astronomy as just one of the many facets of nature she focused on in her work.
Beginning in 1970, Graves would alternate between sculpting and painting or printmaking, and even helped in various film projects. Nancy Graves, though she lived a relatively short life, was a prolific and impressive artist. Much of the time her art is colorful and strange and “fun,” but it also shows a profound sense of innovation.
-M.G.
Sources
Hughes, Robert. "Nancy Graves: An Introduction." The Sculpture of Nancy
Graves: a Catalogue Raisonné. New York: Hudson Hills in Association with the Fort Worth Art Museum, 1987. Print.
Padon, Thomas. Nancy Graves: Excavations in Print: A Catalogue Raisonné.
New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1996. Print.
