Long inspired by everyday items and scenery observed in the world around her, Vija Celmins’s work conveys an acute attention to detail. Born in Latvia, Celmins was just 10 years old when she and her family relocated to the United States in the wake of war. Speaking no English, she focused inward on drawing, which would become a central component of her artistic practice, alongside painting, mezzotint, and sculpture. Celmins is acclaimed for making photorealistic depictions of natural phenomena such as oceans, stars, spiderwebs, and rocks, which she creates with meticulous attention to detail and texture. Her focused, gradual approach to artmaking is demonstrated in A Painting in Six Parts, 1986–87/2012–16, in Glenstone’s collection, in which she transforms an ocean wave image of her own making into a series of paintings unique in tone and dimension, a process that took 30 years.

–From the Glenstone Field Guide