Stairs
Artist
Michael Snow
(Canadian, 1928 - 2023)
Date1963
Mediumoil on Masonite panel
Dimensions205.5 x 52.2 cm
Credit LineThe Mendel Art Gallery Collection at Remai Modern. Purchased 1986.
Object number1986.5.1
Classificationspainting
On View
Not on viewDefined as a visual artist, a filmmaker, and a musician, Michael Snow’s career spans 70 years of intense production that includes paintings, sculptures, photographs, books, holograms, projections, installations, performances and essays. After spending the early part of his career in New York, Snow established a critical following for his improvisational attitude to both his media and content. In 1970, Snow was the first artist featured in a solo exhibition at the Canadian pavilion of the Venice Biennale.
Snow made approximately 200 works of the Walking Woman between 1961 and 1967 using a wide range of materials. By cutting out a silhouette from a sheet of cardboard, Snow made a stencil using both positive and negative space. According to the artist, the form is a generic female, without reference to politics or feminism, stating “My subject is not woman or women, but the first cardboard cut-out of the walking woman I made.” The Walking Woman made her final appearance in the film, Wavelength, and the Ontario Pavilion at Expo ‘67 (now in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario). “It’s not an idea. It’s just a drawing, and not a very good one.”
Snow made approximately 200 works of the Walking Woman between 1961 and 1967 using a wide range of materials. By cutting out a silhouette from a sheet of cardboard, Snow made a stencil using both positive and negative space. According to the artist, the form is a generic female, without reference to politics or feminism, stating “My subject is not woman or women, but the first cardboard cut-out of the walking woman I made.” The Walking Woman made her final appearance in the film, Wavelength, and the Ontario Pavilion at Expo ‘67 (now in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario). “It’s not an idea. It’s just a drawing, and not a very good one.”
