Alyssa Dumire, Director of Education
“How can you tell these works of art were made by the same artist?” When touring students through a solo exhibition, this question allows groups to practice observation and naming similarities among the collection of pieces. Common themes will arise, like application of color, repeated materials, or underlying concepts. This is most clearly seen when an artist has a large collection of art pieces—or a “body of work”—displayed to compare and contrast. In the next few Art Term Tuesdays, we’ll look at artists’ bodies of works in the form of a series, portfolio, and oeuvre.
Series:
Besides visual art, what else comes to mind when you think of a series? Maybe it’s baseball, where a series consists of consecutive games played by the same two teams. Perhaps a television series is a more apt comparison. Works of art can form a limited series, or they can continue (seemingly) infinitely, whenever variations on an idea run out. Some are united by the cohesive story they tell, while others might follow the same format, with new characters and plots each episode (or artwork). No matter the approach, a series in art consists of a group of works that relate to each other in some way, whether by composition, subject, process, or concept.
Throughout art history, series have been used to tell stories or explore different aspects of a subject. These tend to be limited to a number of canvases that tell a complete narrative, like Thomas Cole’s five paintings that comprise The Course of Empire (1833-1836). In contrast, Claude Monet’s paintings of haystacks and cathedrals, Impressionist investigations of changing atmospheric conditions, could have had an infinite number.
In comparison to these earlier examples of series, artists during the 1960s pushed the concept further into seriality. In response to the postwar rise of mass production, Pop artists like Andy Warhol embraced its techniques and imagery. Minimalist and conceptual artists advanced the idea, removing imagery entirely and focusing solely on the rule or premise used to construct their works, sometimes composed of factory-made components that are rearranged for each work in the series.
Working in series allows an artist to fully explore a given idea and its variations, a valuable creative exercise. The rules that govern a series might seem limiting; however, working within such constraints presents a problem for artists to solve in ever more creative ways. Liz Whitney Quisgard’s Ellipse series, below, is one example of this play of variety within limitation: symmetrical, geometric designs fill the same oval shape yet are quite different from each other.
Liz Whitney Quisgard, American, 1929-2024. Ellipse #6, needlework, yarn on buckram, 2009. Image courtesy of FWMoA. 
Liz Whitney Quisgard, American, 1929-2024. Ellipse #5, needlework, yarn on buckram, 2009. Image courtesy of FWMoA. 
Liz Whitney Quisgard, American, 1929-2024. Ellipse #9, needlework, yarn on buckram, 2009. Image courtesy of FWMoA.
Quisgard’s Turnings allow for even more freedom, the columnar sculptures taking on any form that can be achieved by a lathe before being embellished with all variety of surface decoration. True to her “what you see is what you get” philosophy, Quisgard’s series are based solely on compositional structure.
Liz Whitney Quisgard, American, 1929-2024. Turning #6, wood and acrylic paint, 1982. Image courtesy of FWMoA. 
Liz Whitney Quisgard, American, 1929-2024. Gate #8, lathe worked oak, acrylic paint, 1982. Image courtesy of FWMoA. 
Liz Whitney Quisgard, American, 1929-2024. Turning #20, lathe worked maple, acrylic paint, 1993. Image courtesy of FWMoA.
In a different approach, many of Marvin Lipofsky’s series of glass sculptures are named for the places where they were hot-sculpted. Their abstract forms capture the spirit of the surrounding geography and the studio environment. While they may share certain sensibilities or techniques (the works he made at the Fratelli Toso factory often employ bold stripes, for example), the unifying element of each series is the sense of place.
Sometimes, the number of works in a series is determined by its subject. Spring Dawn Kimono, for example, is one of four, one for each season. Paul Manship’s Moods of Time also consists of four sculptures, in this case representing different times of day, and remains intact as a group in FWMoA’s collection. This brings us to another important point about series: the pieces within them can (and often do) exist independently but viewing them as a group can help us understand the artist’s intention more deeply. FWMoA’s collection fortunately includes multiple works from many of the series explored here (and more!), allowing us to do just that through exhibitions like these previous ones featuring Liz Quisgard, archive artist David Shapiro, and currently, Chuck Sperry. On any visit to the museum, you’re also likely to find many individual works whose labels include “from the series…”. Imagine what other works in the series might look like: how could an artist further explore their subject?
To see more work from artists’ collections of works, plan your next visit to the FWMoA!