A vertical painting with a tan background. The entire surface is covered in rectangles, triangles, stamp markings, and paint smears. The colors of the shapes and marks include orange, red, white, blues, greens, and browns. The shapes are arranged in a non-objective pattern.
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Art Term Tuesday: Oeuvre, A Body of Work 3/3

Miranda Dyson, Children’s Education Associate

A vertical painting with a tan background. The entire surface is covered in rectangles, triangles, stamp markings, and paint smears. The colors of the shapes and marks include orange, red, white, blues, greens, and browns. The shapes are arranged in a non-objective pattern.
David Shapiro, American, 1944-2014. From A Valley, acrylic paint, 1977.

As professional artists create and grow their collection of artwork, they use systems to stay organized. In the last two installments of Art Term Tuesday, we reviewed a “body of work” in reference to a series and portfolio. Finally, we’re looking at an example of an oeuvre within FWMoA’s permanent collection with works by David Shapiro.

  • A square, orange, non-objective painting. A vertical separation goes up through the middle of the image, making a right and left side. On the left is a broad, orange, half circle. On the right are twirling and curving dark orange lines.
    Mudra 140-99-P, 1999
  • A dark blue square painting with non-objective forms. A clear vertical separation creates a left and right side of this image. On the left are two horizontal, lighter blue lines. On the right is an organic line that winds around like a figure '8' in lighter blue.
    Mudra 69, 2001
  • A square red painting with a vertical separating line up the center. On the left side are concentric lines formed as a half circle. The rows that the lines create have a thick texture. On the right, there is a smooth texture that looks woven.
    Mudra 35, 1996
  • An off-white background to a square image. The square is separated in two by a diagonal line from the upper right to the lower left corner, making two triangles. The lower triangle has deep red lines crossing over each other vertically and horizontally. The upper triangle is a maroon red with a lighter red half circle.
    Mudra 126-98-P, 1998
  • An off-white background to a square image. The square is separated in two by a vertical line. On the left it is nearly solid black, with a textured covering. On the right are curved lines overlapping each other, showing through lots of negative space.
    Mudra 187-08-P, 2008

Oeuvre:
Noun: OoUh-vruh: The complete, collective body of work produced by an artist, writer, composer, or creator over the course of their lifetime.

This French term, first used in the late 1800’s, is derived from the Latin, “opera” or “opus”, meaning “activity, effort, attention or work”. This kind of collective body of work starts forming before most artists realize, with sketches from childhood, or college projects, creating the foundational blocks of the collection.

  • A group of colorful squares and shapes of different sizes
    Birnham Wood 3, 1978
  • A square split into two triangles with a line going from the top right to the bottom left of the image. The triangle on the left side is white with various shapes, patterns, and strokes in black. The triangle on the right is maroon with clean shapes and patterns in light red, dark red, and black. The image shows a contrast from one side to another of order and chaos.
    Birnham Wood 4, 1979
  • A square split into two triangles with a line going from the top right to the bottom left of the image. Both sides have an orange or bronze background. The triangle on the left has horizontal and zig-zag concentric lines with varying colors including purple, green, and yellow covering different sections of the pattern. On the right are shapes and patterns with clean lines, like squares, and crosses, in yellow and black.
    Birnham Wood 35, 1981
  • A square work of art split in half from the upper left corner to the lower right corner into two triangles. The triangle on the right is dark blue with multicolored shapes and patterns, including a yellow square, black cross, white stairstep, and a red circle. The left side is brown with black strokes in a random pattern.
    Birnham Wood 5, 1980
  • A square work of art split in half from the upper left corner to the lower right corner into two triangles. The triangle on the left is bright red with five shapes outlined in black or gold. The triangle on the right is black. The edges of the triangle on the right has uneven edges that look like it's been torn by hand.
    Birnham Wood V, 1981
  • A square split into two triangles with a line going from the top right to the bottom left of the image. The triangle on the left is black with straight lines on the surface. The triangle on the right is light brown with various shapes, like squares, triangles, and crosses, outlined and filled in with black, peach, and gold paint.
    Birnham Wood 50, 1986
  • A diamond canvas split into left and right with a vertical line dividing down the middle. On the left is black paint with a tan left half of a cross outline. On the right is tan paint with dark splattered paint on top.
    Birnham Wood 41, 1981
  • A diamond canvas split into left and right with a vertical line dividing down the middle. On the left is black paint with a double outline of the left half of a square. On the right it's light grey with dark paint splattered on the surface.
    Birnham Wood 44, 1989

If you’ve ever seen an exhibit of an individual artist and noticed early sketches, a long-term series, a distinctive change in style, or works on display from multiple decades, you might have been walking through an artist’s oeuvre. An oeuvre has a similar sentiment as a portfolio, in that they both look back over a large group of works and display pieces that represent the artist. The main differences between the two are 1) time and 2) number of pieces. An oeuvre will have more pieces from the lifespan of the artist’s career. FWMoA is entrusted with several oeuvres from artists, including Katja Oxman, Chuck Sperry, and Robert Kipness. An article from the FWMoA blog highlights one work from each of the selected artists included in our archive.

  • A vertical painting with layers of lines and colors. The most prominent colors are teal, maroon, and pink. The background is muddled, with blended paint looking cloudy and overlapping each other. The lines sitting on top are spaced out as stripes, in rows and layers horizontally, diagonally, and vertically. Each section of stripes takes on a different color.
    The Forest From the Trees 36, 1985
  • A vertical blue painting. In the bottom right of the image is what looks like black mist. The Surface of the image is covered in blocks of light blue lines that change direction from one section to another. In the middle to the left is a group of dark blue vertical lines.
    The Forest From The Trees 4, 1984
  • A vertical painting with bright orange stripes. The stripes change direction from vertical to diagonal to horizontal. To the right is a group of forest green, horizontal stripes.
    The Forest From The Trees 14, 1985
  • A vertical painting with groups of blue and maroon stripes. The stripes cover different areas of the painting, with vertical, diagonal, and horizontal lines taking up chunks of the painting.
    The Forest From the Trees 24, 1985
  • A vertical, tan painting covered with stripes in different directions.
    The Forest From The Trees 13, 1985

The sampling of pieces seen here by David Shapiro are a small fraction of his oeuvre, as the complete collection is the largest in scope in the history of FWMoA – nearly 800 works! It’s interesting to see the textures, colors, and techniques that carry over or change from one decade to the next. Some oeuvres carry similar themes throughout a lifetime, while others have works that look like they were made by completely different people.

  • A vertical image with dark and light colors imitating fog or mist. There are shapes peaking through in the background. The colors are mainly light and dark brown, with the lightest section in the middle of the picture. The shapes and lines, squares, rectangles, and organic shapes, are alluded to around the edges of the painting.
    Proscenium, 1974
  • A vertical image with dark and light colors imitating fog or mist. There are shapes peaking through in the background. It is dark grey at the top with blues and purples in the center and shapes at the bottom of the image.
    Fears of Measure, 1974
  • A vertical image with dark and light colors imitating fog or mist. There are shapes peaking through in the background. The majority of this image is a gradient from dark to light, from the edges inward. At the bottom are two horizontal dotted lines and the subtle outlines of geometric shapes.
    Archaic Smile (I), (In memory of Mark Rothko), 1974
  • A horizontal image with dark and light colors imitating fog or mist. There are shapes peaking through in the background. On the left are dark chocolatey browns, with lighter brown in the middle. To the right is a section of white. On the farthest right edge is dark brown and has shapes and lines dotted along the edge.
    Sargasso (I), 1974
  • A vertical image with dark and light colors imitating fog or mist. There are shapes peaking through in the background. This image is brown and red at the top with blue and silver at the bottom. Behind the silvery blue are small lines and shapes at the bottom of the image.
    Alphabet Memories, 1974
  • A vertical image with dark and light colors imitating fog or mist. There are shapes peaking through in the background. This image is mainly a color gradient, or vignette, with colors shifting from light to dark brown.
    Chambersong (10), 1975
  • A vertical image with dark and light colors imitating fog or mist. There are shapes peaking through in the background. This image is mainly a color gradient, or vignette, with colors shifting from light to dark brown. At the very bottom is a white line, crooked, almost like a lightning bolt, next to a small circle.
    Archaic Smile (II), 1975
  • A vertical image with dark and light colors imitating fog or mist. There are shapes peaking through in the background. At the top there is dark grey in the upper corners. In the middle of the painting the color is fairly consistent in white and silver and the bottom has organic marks, shapes, colors, and letters.
    The Ghost Sonata

The series above with its misty, dream-like atmosphere has a much different style and mood from the other examples of Shapiro’s work. Yet, in the background there are lines and shapes that echo the organic and mathematic elements used in his Birnham Wood series. The colors of some, in the rust and reds, also remind me of the Birnham Wood and Mudra series.

Whether through a series, portfolio, or oeuvre, it’s inspiring to see the development of an artist’s approach to creations over time. Many artists end up where they didn’t expect, while others see throughlines from as far back as childhood. What would you include in a collective body of work?

Head to our website to learn more about the oeuvres in our special collections and archives!

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oeuvre

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