Magdalena Abakanowicz's sculptures defied categorization, seeming like coats or cocoons that tempted you to crawl inside, or hairy living creatures suspended from the gallery ceiling.
Postwar Europe: c. 1945 -1980
While Hamilton's Just What is It… is considered to be among the most foundational works of Pop Art, this small collage was initially not created as a work of art.
Richard Hamilton, Just What is It That ...
SFMOMA talks with German artist Anselm Kiefer about exploring the past and materials in his work
An interview with Anselm Kiefer
Sheltered by the sea, a study in place and feeling
Sheltered by the sea, Barbara Hepworth’s Pelagos
Describing is a key skill for art historians and for any museum visitor. Learn how.
Describing what you see: Sculpture, Henry Moore’s ...
Sartre described Giacometti’s figures as “halfway between nothingness and being,” but “very skinny” works too.
Alberto Giacometti, Walking Man II
The artist mined the art of non-western cultures to locate “primal creativity”—whatever that means.
Jean Dubuffet, Childbirth
Dubuffet’s style is not what it seems, and his title takes on ironic overtones in light of its historical context.
Dubuffet, A View of Paris: The Life ...
Richter revives the genre of history painting in the 21st century in this work showing the events of 9/11.
Gerhard Richter, September
John Cage and Richter never met, but there was a kinship between these two artists with diverse practices.
Gerhard Richter, The Cage Paintings (1-6)
Hyperreal paintings like “Betty” are just one part of Richter’s practice, which resists stylistic classification.
Gerhard Richter, Betty
This body, a husk without arms, legs, or a head, is an expression of suffering—both mournful and disturbing.
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Androgyne III
Freud’s nude isn’t the idealized, horizontal beauty of previous centuries, but a forthright, vertical one.
Lucian Freud, Standing by the Rags
Coping with the death of his lover, Bacon paints figures who decompose and fuse together in front of our eyes.
Francis Bacon, Triptych – August 1972
We’re sick with the illness of the 20th century, and only a clay-powered wooden battery thing can help.
Joseph Beuys, Table with Accumulator (Tisch mit ...
Beuys understood his art as a way to heal post-WWII Germany, but that may not be readily apparent from this work.
Joseph Beuys, Fat Chair
Beuys believed that every human being had the potential to be both creative and Christlike.
Joseph Beuys, Feet Washing and Conceptual Performance
Cheap fabric with a garish print becomes an eerie specter of surveillance thanks to some creative chemistry.
Sigmar Polke, Watchtower series
Hugh Hefner turned women into objects, and Sigmar Polke turned those objects into dots.
Sigmar Polke, Bunnies
Richter toys with both visual and ethical clarity in this evocative, ambiguous painting of an uncle lost to WWII.
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