Untitled (Night Sky #22)
Vija Celmins
American, born Latvia 1938
2001
A charcoal-on-paper drawing in which Vija Celmins painstakingly renders a dense field of stars to evoke the vast, silent presence of the night sky.
At first it reads like a photograph—countless pinpricks of light across a soft gray ground—but the smoky charcoal halos and the paper’s texture reveal an intimate, handmade impression of infinity.
By translating photographic-looking skies into meticulous hand-drawn images, Celmins links photorealism and the sublime, showing how patient, exacting labor can make cosmic scale feel perceptible and personal.
Medium
Charcoal on paper
Dimensions
18 3/4 x 22" (47.6 x 55.9 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Purchase
Accession
2581.2001
Palette
Exhibitions
