Woman Preparing for a Shower

Painting

-

di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art

Name/Title

Woman Preparing for a Shower

Entry/Object ID

227

Description

Woman in black and white robe and shower cap standing in blue tiled shower; dog standing on hind legs with towel in mouth

Artwork Details

Medium

Enamel on canvas

Category

Painting

Acquisition

Accession

AR227

Source or Donor

Allan Frumkin Gallery

Acquisition Method

Purchase

Made/Created

Artist

Joan Brown

Date made

1975

Inscription/Signature/Marks

Type

Signature, Title, Date

Location

Verso, center, stretcher board

Transcription

Joan Brown / "Woman Preparing for / a Shower" / July 7, 1975

Material/Technique

In Artist's Hand

Lexicon

LOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials

Dogs, Bathing

Dimensions

Dimension Description

Object

Height

84 in

Width

72 in

Exhibitions

Exhibition

Far Out

Notes

August 2 - October 4, 2025, di Rosa SF

Exhibition

Joan Brown

Notes

November 19, 2022 - March 12, 2023, SF MoMA; May 27, 2023 - September 24, 2023, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; February 7, 2024 - May 1, 2024, Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA

Exhibition

To Begin Again: A Pre-History of the Wex,1968-89

Notes

February 5 - May 8, 2022, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH

Exhibition

Building A Different Model: Selections from the di Rosa Collection

Notes

March 9 - December 30, 2019, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa, CA

Exhibition

The True Artist is an Amazing Luminous Fountain

Notes

April 21 - July 31, 2004, Kreeger Museum, Washington D.C.; September 12, 2004 - May 8, 2005, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa; June 21 - August 14, 2005, Palm Springs Art Museum; October 8 - November 27, 2005, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History

Research Notes

Web Links and URLs

Building a Different Model: Selections from the di Rosa Collection

Notes

Joan Brown’s paintings from around this time often depicted dancers or nights out, making this a rare “before” portrait. It is also anomalous in her oeuvre because it is not explicitly of the artist herself. Yet we still see Brown engaged with the compositional issues regarding interior spaces that she was exploring in other works from this period. The woman is alone in a space that is both a vast, patterned expanse and an oddly claustrophobic corner. The dog, modeled on Brown’s own Rufus, both waits for and entertains her. It is a portrait of life in solitary motion.