Sophie Taeuber-Arp

Geometric Construction, 1942

ink over pencil, collaged onto art board

In 1942, the year before Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s death, she created a small group of works that represented a radical break from the brightly colored line pictures she had been making while in exile in the South of France. Whereas the dancing lines seemed to reflect an enthusiasm for her Mediterranean sanctuary, these newer compositions, most of them in pure black and white, raise questions. In collaged ink drawings, lines and isolated fragments shatter the harmonic form of the circle, robbing it of its perfection.