JAY DEFEO
Untitled (Samurai series)
1986
Acrylic, oil pastel and oil with collage on paper
32 x 40 inches
© The Jay DeFeo Foundation /Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The solo exhibition highlights DeFeo’s Samurai series, a body of paintings on heavy paper influenced by DeFeo’s 1985 trip to Japan as well as the exhibition Spectacular Helmets of Japan, 16 – 19th Century, which she viewed the same year in San Francisco.
This installation of the DeFeo's “Samurai” series, 1986–87, begins to redress this narrative, as many of these large-format paintings on paper refute the notion of a singularly careful and slow-working painter.