Artwork Details
- Title
- Roselit Day
- Artist
- Date
- 1953
- Location
- Dimensions
- 36 x 50 in. (91.3 x 127.0 cm)
- Markings
- lower right in oil: I. RICE PEREIRa stretcher upper left in pencil: Rose flames of Sunlit day Roselit day (underlined)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Leslie Bokor
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- oil on canvas
- Classifications
- Keywords
- Nonrepresentational
- Abstract — geometric
- Object Number
- 1973.190
Artwork Description
Roselit Day grew out of Irene Rice Pereira's three-dimensional paintings created in the 1930s and '40s. The artist believed that light was a dimension in space, rather than just a reflection on a surface, and in the earlier works she had overlaid panes of glass or parchment so that the light flowed through the assembled work, blending colors as it went. Here, the network of sharply drawn lines and transparent planes advancing and receding in space echoes this earlier technique. Pereira wanted her abstract paintings not only to give visible form to the latest discoveries in physics, biochemistry, and other sciences, but also to convey the mystical effects of light and color. Rosy pinks and reds suggest the hues of a stained-glass window and, in fact, Pereira's efforts to understand the workings of the universe eventually led her to Catholicism in the 1960s.