Laughing Woman and Close-Up

James Francis Gill

1964

A crayon drawing on oak tag board in which Gill transforms a cropped photographic moment of a laughing woman into a doubled, high‑contrast image to probe how mass media turns private expression into an icon.

What hits you first is the confrontational close‑up repeated across the board—the head thrown back, mouth open, and grainy shadowing that makes the face both vivid and strangely abstracted, set against deep blue and brown shapes that read like a cinematic frame or window.

Dating from 1964, the piece sits at the intersection of Pop Art and photo‑based appropriation, showing how artists reclaimed and hand‑worked photographic imagery to question reproduction, spectacle, and emotional authenticity in modern visual culture.

Palette

Art Terms

Drawing Portrait Diptych Pop art Appropriation Cropping Figurative Popular culture

Exhibitions

Pop Art Prints, Drawings, and Multiples

1970

American Drawings and Watercolors: A Selection from the Collection

1969

British Drawings

1977

American Prints, 1960–1985

1987