Accession Number
2008/2.245

Title
Untitled (Head)

Artist(s)
Michael Lucero

Object Creation Date
circa 1985

Medium & Support
glazes on white earthenware

Dimensions
8 1/2 x 14 x 9 in. (21.59 x 35.56 x 22.86 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
Michael Lucero
United States, born 1953
Untitled (Head)
circa 1985
Glazed ceramic
2008/2.245

Subject matter
Part of Lucero’s Dreamers series, the artist has cut away the top of the head to allow the dreamer's thoughts to spill out onto his face.
“The surface imagery of the Dreamers is crowded with personal icons from Lucero’s life, including...images of Northwest Coast totem poles recalling his years in Washington State, and the characteristically red earth and rugged landscapes of New Mexico where he spent childhood summers and has a home. While he was making the series, Lucero was not aware of the dream symbolism. However, looking back, he has realized that many of the craggy landscapes and shaped rocks and cliffs derived both from childhood associations, such as Camel Rock, which terrified him as a child, and from youthful nightmares.” (Mark Richard Leach, Barbara J. Bloemink and Lucy R. Lippard, Michael Lucero: sculpture 1976-1995, p. 53)

Physical Description
White earthenware “sleeping” head lying on its right cheek (right ear omitted to lay flat) with a geometric section of crown removed. The cut at the head is painted terra cotta, the cut at the neck painted with a landscape of a tree at the edge of a cliff. A forest scene set against pink mountains covers the face, and desert rock formations in silhouette cover the back of the head.

Primary Object Classification
Ceramic

Primary Object Type
head

Additional Object Classification(s)
Painting

Collection Area
Modern and Contemporary

Rights
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Keywords
Surrealist
ceramics (object genre)
deserts
dreams
faces (animal components)
forests (cultural landscapes)
landscapes (representations)
mountains
sleeping
trees