
Artwork Details
- Title
- Hibernation
- Artist
- Date
- 1954
- Location
- Not on view
- Dimensions
- sheet: 18 1⁄4 x 26 3⁄8 in. (46.2 x 66.9 cm)
- Credit Line
- Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- watercolor on paper mounted on paper
- Classifications
- Keywords
- State of being — other — sleep
- Animal
- Object Number
- 1986.6.37
Artwork Description
Graves combined nature with Asian philosophy in Hibernation. This painting depicts an adult mink resting in a fetal position. It is surrounded by a glowing egg, or “Yoga mandala,” which, according to Graves, “blooms” as a result of the mink’s “intense isolation.” Hibernation manifests the artist’s displeasure with the industrial world and his appreciation for rural solitude and the spellbinding quiet of nature.
Graphic Masters II: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2009