Viola Frey

Nationality
American
Birth Year
1933
Death Year
2004
Biography

Frey is known for her larger-than-life monumental ceramic figures of men in power suits and women either clothed, inspired by the fashions of the 1950s, or dressed in pink on their birthday suits. She sculpted women holding the world or gazing at it, placing them in a position of power. She created men standing, walking, seated or fallen, wearing their nature and vulnerabilities in their suits and their visages.

Flower Headed Man on Table is an excellent example of Frey's monumental figurative work from the apex of her career. While some of her art is highly autobiographical in nature, her large figures deal with universal themes of social interaction in an increasingly complex world. The monumentality of scale in the figures brings us back to the sensation of childhood when adults were towering pillars in the forest of humanity.

Artwork

Flower Headed Man on Table

Viola Frey, 1978
Status
Active