Rough, Ain't It

Artist Grace Hartigan (1922 - 2008)

Date1949

MediumOil and mixed media on canvas

Dimensions40 x 54 in. (101.6 x 137.2 cm)
Framed: 43 3/16 × 56 13/16 × 2 1/16 in.

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LinePromised Gift to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas

Signedl.l.: Hartigan 49

On View

Not on view

Label TextGritty, urban, and full of explosive energy, this painting displays the use of experimental mediums and methods. Grace Hartigan mixed sand into the paint to create a rough surface, a visual response to the collaged, printed words in the center of the painting: “Rough, Ain’t It.”

The drips of cream-colored pigment in the upper third of the canvas connect Hartigan’s style to other artists working at the time, like Jackson Pollock and Janet Sobel, whose work, Hiroshima, is also on display in this gallery. By using this dripping method, these artists conveyed a fascination with chance and accident. Hartigan embraced the freedom offered by this approach. Believing that art should express the unique inner world of the artist, she stated that “painting must have content and emotion.”