Culture
It’s All In The Jeans: George Segal Exhibit Opens At Kennedy Museum
By: Philip Barnes
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The artist George Segal was probably best known for his white life-size sculptures, idling endlessly at bus stops or sitting frozen on public benches.
However, the Kennedy Museum of Art's new Segal exhibit is all about prints, not plaster.
Starting today, prints from Segal's 1975 Blue Jean Series are on display at the museum, each prominently displaying a shadowed torso wearing a pair of jeans (ironically, none of them are blue).
For each original etching, Segal used powdered rosin to achieve an overcast of earthy gray, red and green tones via a technique called aquatint.
The printing plates were engraved along the contours of actual human models with varying pants sizes, evoking the artist’s trademark sense of raw realism.
"Segal captures the human condition; his work is extremely realistic," said Associate Museum Curator Jessica Law. "He sometimes gets associated with pop art, with artists like Warhol. But I don’t see him as that. I think he is an artist who is interested in the human body. He’s a humanitarian. I think that’s what this series addresses."
The Blue Jean Series is part of the Kennedy’s permanent collection. In the past, only one or two prints have been shown simultaneously, but eight prints (out of nine) will be shown together in this exhibit.
Admission is free and the exhibit runs through Aug. 11, 2013. For more information, visit www.ohio.edu/museum.