Untitled (The Barge)

Luc Tuymans

1979

A small watercolor on paper in which Luc Tuymans reduces a barge to a pale circular focal form surrounded by smudged gray washes, aiming to suggest a half-remembered scene rather than a clear depiction.

At first glance a luminous, nearly blank circle seizes the center like a porthole or moon, while loose, translucent grays and soft edges fold around it, giving the image a hushed, ambiguous presence.

An early statement of Tuymans’s restrained, memory-driven approach, this drawing helped establish the muted palette and suggestive, anti-photographic strategies that influenced contemporary painting’s engagement with history and recollection.

Palette

Exhibitions

American Watercolors; Lettering and Arrangements in Poster Design

1941

Charles Burchfield: Early Watercolors 1916–1918

1930

Fruit and Flower Paintings

1933

Drawings: Recent Acquisitions

1969