Veiled Head II

Description

This small, sinister series of veiled heads reveals the influence of Philip Hanson’s fellow student and future spouse, Christina Ramberg, who is known for her studies of anonymous women with veiled or bound heads and hands. Hanson’s haunting faces are covered with rigid veils. The figures’ mouths, with feral, bared teeth, float impossibly in front of the veils, while fantastical nurse’s caps with adobe-style parapets, similar to the architectural facades in Pavilion Park, sit atop them. As the series progresses, the faces are obscured, leaving the hovering, ghostly visage of the veil as a dramatic afterimage.

Veiled Head II

Philip Hanson

1967

Accession Number

195846

Medium

Color etching and drypoint (printed à la poupee in black and purple), on ivory wove paper

Dimensions

Image/plate: 10.6 × 8.3 cm (4 3/16 × 3 5/16 in.); Sheet: 14 × 11.6 cm (5 9/16 × 4 5/8 in.)

Classification

print

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Through prior bequest of Vera Berdich