
Born: June 25, 1898 - Watervliet, NY, USA
Died: January 8, 1963 - Woodbury, CT, USA

Important Art by Kay SageThe below artworks are the most important by Kay Sage - that both overview the major creative periods, and highlight the greatest achievements by the artist. | |
![]() Artwork Images | Afterwards (1937)Artwork description & Analysis: This is a relatively early work made when Sage was still experimenting with various styles, and especially with geometric abstraction. The painting is composed of tri-dimensional rectangles of different sizes that have been stacked together randomly and precariously. There is a great sense of perspective based on oblique lines converging towards a vanishing point in the upper middle of the canvas, and also the sense that the structure could topple down before our eyes. Colors mostly belong to a muted blue palette and give a cool, oceanic or sky-like atmosphere to the whole painting. Brushstrokes, precise and not visible, add a quality of stillness and clarity and highlight the artist's abilities as an incredible draughtswoman. Oil on canvas - Colorado Springs Fine Art Center at Colorado College |
![]() Artwork Images | My Room Has Two Doors (1939)Artwork description & Analysis: This is an early surrealist work that shows de Chirico's strong influence on Sage and also introduces the artist's recurrent motif of the egg. The artist borrows several elements from the older Italian, including the stairwell and open archway, and in turn builds in her own distinctive voice. The egg is at the very center of the canvas and seems to lean against a curved wall that divides the space in two. Like de Chirico, by using objects from daily life and setting up uncanny juxtapositions, Sage creates a "metaphysical space". The shadows suggest further spaces invisible to the viewer, while the horizon line extends the space further into the background as well. This work is one of a cluster made at the time, all of which depict a variant combination of eggs, drapery, arches and stairways. Oil on canvas - Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT |
![]() Artwork Images | I Saw Three Cities (1944)Artwork description & Analysis: This painting is a desolate, geometric landscape dominated by a tall, cloaked guardian in the foreground. The human looking figure is composed of a central pole and swirling drapery. The fluid and animated drapery is well rendered. As a critic noted in 1947, "Sage paints draperies like the masters did". The feeling of movement and blowing wind through the cloth made the figure contrast with the extreme stillness of the landscape. Surrounding the figure, a 'building block' landscape is depicted with simple shapes, mainly triangles and rectangles. An interesting perspective is created and underlined by the various sizes of the shapes and by the horizon line in the background. Colors are soft and similar all across the canvas. Only the partially visible pole stands out with its red tone, as though at this point Sage still has an internal core of red; there is life inside. Oil on canvas - Princeton University Art Museum |
![]() Artwork Images | Starling, Caravans (1948)Artwork description & Analysis: In this painting, a contorted, insect-like structure with exposed innards is set against a lonely horizon. This could be the scene of a broken creature fallen from flight (the starling?), a ship-wreck, or, as suggests the title, a caravan of travelers moving through the desert. Once again, there is no human figure to guide us so elements of meaning are only suggested and open to vast interpretation. The painting is well structured with clear and simple lines that confer with vitality even though the image is static. The drapery is beautifully rendered and the painting has more details and colors in general than other works by Sage. The influence of Tanguy can be seen as he included many small multi-colored organic shapes in his work. Sage picks up the color and maybe some of the playfulness of her husband's paintings but integrates them here in her own serious linear and structured composition. As with other works by the artist, the painting deals with the theme of travel. Instead of depicting actual sailing though, or the path of flight in motion, Sage presents the aftermath of such activities. Debris, pieces of cloth, wood pieces or bones, of what appears to be a broken vessel hint to the prior presence of life in this now deserted landscape. Oil on canvas - Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco |
![]() Artwork Images | The Small Head (1950)Artwork description & Analysis: Art Historian Whitney Chadwick writes that this portrait directly addresses the issue of "psychic barrenness". The motif of hair that we saw in the I saw Three Cities painting comes up again here, but this time as a sort of red mane and the only natural aspect of an otherwise entirely mechanically constructed face. Interestingly a very similar shock of red hair appears in an earlier work by Tanguy called Girl With Red Hair, painted in 1926. This subtle and hidden reference to a woman's hair, gives the viewer a clue to what Sage is generally interested in her own highly complex and difficult to interpret language. She is interested in the overarching question, What is Woman? She considers the possibility that the egg, and thus perhaps birth makes a woman, but then she asks if the answer to the question may lie in our hair. There is a constructed idea created by a patriarchal society to what a woman is or should be and Sage is perpetually challenging and de-constructing this notion. Oil on canvas |
![]() Artwork Images | Tomorrow is Never (1955)Artwork description & Analysis: This painting depicts four tower-like constructions in a gray and foggy landscape. Each tower is different and built of wooden scaffolding. They are not all on the same ground and divide the space into foreground, middle ground, and background. The pole on the right suggests the possibility of further construction yet to take place. It is unclear whether these structures are standing on the ground or floating in the air, either way they are vulnerable and unstable. Each tower contains a trapped cloth-wrapped figure. Oil on canvas - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
![]() Artwork Images | The Passage (1956)Artwork description & Analysis: This was Sage's last self-portrait painted before her death and unusually depicts the human figure. The artist herself sits naked to the waist looking over a bleak and barren landscape. The parallel to be made with Frida Kahlo's The Broken Column (1942) is a revealing one. Kahlo too wears only a loincloth, as though imitating the condemned Jesus Christ. Kahlo depicts her own psychological pain through the fissure through her torso and small nails that pierce her skin. As we have come to know is typical of Sage, she does not make her suffering so explicit. She simply turns her back on the viewer - unable to look us straight in the eyes - she internalizes her grief entirely. With no motif or means for release, Sage is consumed by her own internal struggle and cannot be free from it. Oil on canvas |
![]() Artwork Images | The Answer is No (1958)Artwork description & Analysis: In one of her very last paintings, Sage depicts a mass of frames, canvas, stretchers, and blank rectangular shapes. The horizon line suggests an infinite number of these essential painter's tools. The strictly linear structure of the composition conveys a feeling of order and organization despite the multitude and layers of objects. A palette of browns, greys, and muted blues dominate making the whitish canvas in the foreground with the shadow cast a highlight. Oil on canvas - Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT |
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Content compiled and written by Pich-Chenda Sar
Edited and revised, with Synopsis and Key Ideas added by Rebecca Baillie
" Artist Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Pich-Chenda Sar
Edited and revised, with Synopsis and Key Ideas added by Rebecca Baillie
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