Accession Number
2008/2.254

Title
Gio Ponti's Mirror

Artist(s)
Lucio Pozzi

Object Creation Date
1993

Medium & Support
watercolor on paper

Dimensions
12 1/4 x 18 1/8 in. (31 x 46 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
Lucio Pozzi
United States, born 1935
Gio Ponti’s Mirror
1993
Paper
2008/2.254

Subject matter
This geometric, linear drawing is likely an abstract portrait of Gio Ponti. A central figure in Italy's post-war design renaissance, Ponti was a poet, painter, industrial designer and founding editor of Domus magazine as well as an architect. [http://designmuseum.org/design/gio-ponti]
Going against the descriptiveness of the title, however, Pozzi has stated: “My painting doesn’t start from any premise other than the analysis of its own elementary characteristics. It does not include in its combination of elements outside premises such as mathematics, vegetation, primitive cultures, modern publicity, traditional symbolism, the esoteric or the occult. It is not at the service of anything, it doesn’t represent anything.” (cited in Bret Waller, Works from the Collection of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel exh. cat., University of Michigan Museum of Art)

Physical Description
A small, squat rectangle divided into two halves is centered on a large sheet of paper. The left half is a blue wash with black marks; the right half is a light gray wash with blue marks.

Primary Object Classification
Painting

Primary Object Type
abstract

Additional Object Classification(s)
Drawing

Collection Area
Modern and Contemporary

Rights
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Keywords
Abstract (fine arts style)
portraits
triangles (polygons)