When the news of D’Artagnan’s work at the Museum of Modern Art broke yesterday, it unleashed an real tsunami of enthusiasm across the whole ICBIE community, with a flurry of triumphant and congratulatory emails flying around the globe. In New York, our stalwart friend Mary Norris went straight from work to the museum, to verify the news. Here is her report!
YES! D’Artagnan is there! It is a deep, lush, purple painting, full of his signature trees and veins and leaves and flames and beads and seeds, with a gingerbread house and triplets. And toes, of course. It hangs low, which suits it, because of the toes and because one of the flower shapes in the background (though there is no background, really–that’s one of the things about him) looks like sea anemone, waving. You have to crouch to get a good look at it, and people do. It’s in very good company. On the way in, I saw Saul Steinberg. To D’Artagnan’s left is a Joseph Cornell. There’s a John Currin (hot) and a Basquiat and a Miro and an R. Crumb. I just can’t stop smiling at the thought of D’Artagnan safe in that company.
Thanks for the news, Mary!
