Accession Number
2008/2.241

Title
Progress of Beauty 1

Artist(s)
Mark Kostabi

Artist Nationality
American (North American)

Object Creation Date
1988

Medium & Support
ink on paper

Dimensions
12 1/16 x 9 1/16 in. (30.5 x 23 cm)

Credit Line
The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the Nation Gallery of Art, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services

Label copy
Mark Kostabi
United States, born 1960
Progress of Beauty 1
1988
Ink on paper
2008/2.241

Subject matter
Based on the painting by Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (1662) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In this work, Vermeer’s painting has been rendered in linear form: stained glass window, wall, shadow thrown by window, the woman’s head and shoulder covering and bodice, tablecloth, basin and pitcher, the map on the wall behind her; the jewelry box has been changed to a cash register.
Kostabi describes himself as a “corporate artist” who makes “business art”—work in which market mechanisms, commodification and commercialization are not separated from the traditional realms of aesthetics and creativity. The woman with pitcher is rendered as the “everyman” figure in his paintings—smooth, featureless, tonally modeled form.

Physical Description
Line drawing in felt tip marker on ivory ~ 10x13” paper.

Primary Object Classification
Drawing

Primary Object Type
caricature

Collection Area
Modern and Contemporary

Rights
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit http://umma.umich.edu/request-image for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.

Keywords
Dutch (culture or style)
business (commercial function)
copies (derivative objects)
figurative art
illustration (process)
pitchers (vessels)
windows
women (female humans)