American artist Lee Bontecou had a wide range of influences, including mechanized objects, politics, nature, and the human body. Her work stands at the crossroads of abstraction and figuration; organic and mechanical; social and personal. Untitled, 1962, in Glenstone’s collection, exemplifies the many facets of her practice, pushing the boundaries between sculpture and painting. The work extends from the wall into three-dimensional space while simultaneously recoiling into itself with three “black holes” that create the appearance of voids within the work. Viewers have drawn connections between such works and the 1960s cultural and political preoccupation with the cosmos, space travel, and the race to the Moon.

–Jamiee Shim, from the Glenstone Field Guide