Woman in Pink Gown

Sculpture

Paul Harris Estate

Woman in Pink Gown, 1964, cloth on wood, 44 x 25 x 32 inches

Name/Title

Woman in Pink Gown

Entry/Object ID

312

Artwork Details

Medium

Cloth on wood

Made/Created

Artist

Paul Harris

Date made

1964

Edition

Edition Size

1 of 1

Other Names and Numbers

Other Names

Name Type

Also known as

Other Name

Seated Figure

Other Numbers

Number Type

Previous PH Estate Inventory Number

Other Number

57.00

Dimensions

Height

44 in

Width

25 in

Depth

32 in

Dimension Notes

Life size

Relationships

Related Publications

Publication

Brown, Theophilus. Paul Harris Sculpture. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000.

Notes

fig. 52

Exhibitions

Paul Harris, Lanyon Gallery, Palo Alto, CA, April 27–May 22, 1965

Exhibition

Paul Harris, Poindexter Gallery, New York, NY, December 20, 1966–January 14, 1967

Notes

Listed in this show as "Seated Figure"

How the West Was Done, Arts Council of Philadelphia, PA, 1966

The Work of Visiting Artists, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, 1966

American Sculpture of the Sixties [traveling exhibition], Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA, April 28–June 25, 1967; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA, September 25–October 29, 1967

General Notes

Note Type

Remarks

Note

“For a few months in 1965 my family and I were privileged to live with a sculpture by Paul Harris called The Woman in a Pink Gown. It was an experience I shall never forget. Coming down to breakfast we would find her sitting in the window in the morning light, better dressed than we, gently reminding us that we were not alone. Or arriving home late at night, when we switched on the lamp, there she would be, seeming about to speak, graceful, patient, ready to hear about our evening. With other guests we almost felt that we should turn to include her, introduce her perhaps, or ask a question which she could answer and thus find her way into the group. “We have lived with many contemporary works of art at different times over the last twenty years, but none have been so insistent on being part of life, on changing the very meaning of our environment, as Paul's sculpture. This is a rare power today; a much more common experience is to become accustomed to-to cease to be affected by-a work when it becomes familiar.” —Phyllis Diebenkorn, “Reflections on the Work of Paul Harris,” exhibition catalogue for Paul Harris Sculpture, Certain Pieces, 1958–1980, 1981. Chronology Excerpt: “Harris sews his first stuffed cloth figure Woman in Blue Slacks. By 1964, he will have produced three additional works, including Woman in Pink Gown (1964) and Woman Giving Her Greeting (1964). ‘Vivaciously colored, highly patterned,’ enthuses Leah Triplett. The body of work, she adds, ‘demonstrates a painterly sensibility and a command for expressing emotion through material and formal juxtapositions’ and ‘anticipates installation art of the late 1970s and 1980s in their sense of space and scale.’ The sculptures were heavily influenced by available materials. In a 2000 radio interview, he reflects that, ‘In my time . . . we were faced with new materials which looked like they were going to have great possibilities for us . . . For my part, I couldn’t afford bronze, and I don’t think I had the physical structure for working in stone. I just had to look around because of the problems of money; and when I came to Bolinas, in a house that we rented, someone had had a fire and had left clothes . . . And she left some mattresses. And so I stuffed these and made stuffed figures for quite a while that I sewed . . . It did express something that I needed to say at that point . . . and it helped me to find my subject matter.’ Nicholas Harris remembers, ‘After school I would often come to his studio on the Bolinas Lagoon, and I have similar memories of him sewing diligently for hours on end. I remember threading many of his curved needles so he could stay focused on the work. The word got out that he was making these cloth sculptures of women in chairs. Family friends donated furniture and cloth, some of which ended up in the sculptures. Our friends couldn’t believe that a man sewed so well and so much.’”

Created By

[email protected]

Create Date

August 27, 2025

Updated By

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Update Date

September 16, 2026