Artwork
Untitled
Untitled is a gouache drawing by Jake Berthot. It dates from 1985 and is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
About this work
Overview
Untitled (1985) is a drawing by American artist Jake Berthot, executed in ink, gouache, and pencil on paper. Notably, this work deviates from Berthot's predominantly non-figurative oeuvre of the time, introducing ambiguous, blurry figures.
Subject & Meaning
The drawing depicts two closely positioned figures with indistinct faces and bodies rendered in hasty, expressive lines. One figure has a wildly tangled hair representation, while the other's head is a dark, formless shape, suggesting a departure from Berthot's usual abstract focus towards a more representational, yet abstracted, human form.
Technique & Style
Berthot employed ink and gouache to achieve loose, sketchy marks, conveying a sense of urgency or spontaneity. The pale background features faint, watery color smudges, enhancing the overall impression of rapid execution on aged, softly edged paper.
History & Provenance
Created in 1985, *Untitled* is now part of The Museum of Modern Art's collection, marking a significant, if anomalous, piece within Berthot's early non-figurative dominant corpus.
Context
Emerging in the 1980s, this work may reflect the artist's brief experimentation with figurative elements amidst a broader abstract expressionist and minimalist landscape in American art.
Legacy
As an outlier in Berthot's non-figurative body of work, *Untitled* offers insight into the artist's exploratory phases, though its impact on his overall legacy remains defined by his abstract contributions.
Artist & collection
Artist
Jake Berthot (1939–2014) was an American artist whose abstract paintings contained elements of both the minimalist and expressionist styles.
