Artwork
Untitled
Untitled is a graphite drawing by Sue Williams. It dates from 1992 and is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
About this work
A red lipstick mark sits alone near the bottom left, and a tiny sketch of a face appears in the corner.
This piece looks like a collage of old court papers, a pink eviction notice, and handwritten notes. There’s a small drawing of a person in a hooded jacket, scribbled over a torn piece of paper. A red lipstick mark sits alone near the bottom left, and a tiny sketch of a face appears in the corner. The whole thing feels messy, like someone glued together scraps of real life.
The eviction notice is dated 1987, but the artist made this in 1992. It’s like she froze a moment of legal trouble and turned it into art.
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Overview
Created in 1992, this drawing by Sue Williams combines fragmented printed and painted paper elements with ink, pencil, and adhesive tape. The work is constructed on a single sheet of paper, assembled from found materials including legal documents and personal annotations. Its physical composition reflects an accumulation of discarded or used surfaces, suggesting a process of reassembling fragments of lived experience into a new visual narrative.
Subject & Meaning
The piece incorporates an eviction notice dated 1987, alongside handwritten notes and a faint sketch of a hooded figure. A single red lipstick mark and a small, isolated face appear as enigmatic additions. These elements suggest themes of displacement, bureaucratic intrusion, and personal vulnerability. The work does not narrate a specific event but evokes the emotional residue of legal and social pressures through its layered, unstable composition.
Technique & Style
Williams employs collage as a method of accumulation rather than refinement. Materials are layered, torn, and taped without concealment, preserving the texture and imperfections of their origins. Ink and pencil additions appear spontaneous, contrasting with the printed text’s formality. The absence of a unified composition reinforces a sense of fragmentation, aligning the work with postmodern strategies that prioritize process over polish.
History & Provenance
The work entered the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, where it remains part of its drawings and prints holdings. Its creation in 1992 places it within a period when many artists were engaging with found materials to interrogate personal and political narratives. The inclusion of a 1987 eviction notice indicates the artist’s use of real-time documents, grounding the piece in a specific historical moment of economic and social strain.
Context
Emerging in the early 1990s, this work reflects broader artistic interest in the intersection of private life and institutional power. The use of legal documents as artistic material resonates with feminist and post-minimalist practices that challenged traditional notions of authorship and aesthetic value. Williams’s approach aligns with contemporaries who treated the archive as a site of personal and political resonance.
Legacy
The work contributes to a lineage of artist-led interventions using documentary fragments to convey social tension. Its unpolished aesthetic and reliance on everyday materials have influenced subsequent generations exploring trauma, bureaucracy, and identity through assemblage. While not widely reproduced, its presence in MoMA’s collection affirms its role in expanding the boundaries of drawing as a medium for critical inquiry.
Artist & collection
