Marisol Escobar

Sidney Janis Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above on May 19, 1966 for $14,250

New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, Marisol, April 1966, illustrated on the cover of the catalogue (detail of two figures) and illustrated on the cover of the exhibition announcement
Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, 68th Annual Exhibition, August - October 1966
Venice, XXXIV Biennale di Venezia, Venezuela Pavilion, May - September 1968, cat. no. 6, illustrated (in Venezuela Pavilion exhibition catalogue)
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van-Beuningen, Marisol, November - December 1968, cat. no. 6, illustrated
Minneapolis, Institute of Art, on extended loan, 1975-2005

A. Bullock, The Twentieth Century, London 1970, illustrated in color
Elizabeth Kessler, art ed., Adventures in Values, New York 1970, p. 384, illustrated in color
Susan Haggerty, art ed., Man and His Fiction, New York 1973, illustrated in color and on the cover
Penguin Education Series, Identity, West Drayton, Middlesex 1973, illustrated
Clive David "Parties", Holiday, Indianapolis 1975, illustrated in color
Elsa Honig Fine, Women and Art, London 1978, p. 220, illustrated
Vivian Epstein, History of Women Artists for Children, Denver 1987, p. 25, illustrated in color
Mary Abbe Martin, "Artist Regroups her 15 Mingling Figures Adding a Bit of Tourism", Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 4, 1988, pp. 14-15, illustrated
In Art of Man, December 1985, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., illustrated
Paul Gardner, "Who is Marisol?", Art News, May 1989, p. 149, illustrated in color
Exh. Cat., Washington, D. C., National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Magical Mixtures: Marisol Portrait Sculpture, April - August 1991, p. 25, illustrated
Cecile Whiting, "Figuring Marisol's Femininities", Revue canadien d'Art, vol. XVII, nos. 1-2, 1991, pp. 78-87, illustrated twice
Sawako Noguchi, ed., Contemporary Great Masters: Marisol, vol. 15, Tokyo 1993, p. 20, illustrated in color
Kent Brown, ed., "Marisol", Highlights for Children, January 1993, illustrated
Albert Boime, "The Postwar Definition of Self: Marisol's Yearbook Illustrations for the Class of '49", American Art, Washington, D.C., Spring 1993, illustrated
David Anger, "The Cocktail Party", Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine, November 1995, illustrated
Cecile Whiting, A Taste for Pop, Cambridge, England 1997, p. 227 illustrated
Margaret Barlow, Women Artists, Southport 1999, p. 271, illustrated in color

“I began to make self-portraits because working at night I had no other model. I used myself over and over again. At times making these self-portraits, I would learn about myself.” (Marisol, 1968)

Born of Venezuelan parents in Paris, Marisol Escobar’s early artistic training was a transcontinental experience that brought her from Europe to the Jepson School in Los Angeles and then the Art Students League in New York.  There, she had the opportunity to study under the tutelage of Hans Hoffman, and soon thereafter she would shed her surname Escobar in order to assume an identity distinctly her own, rather than that of her father. She quickly catapulted herself onto the New York art scene in the 1960s, armed with a precocious talent and an aura of mystery and cool chic that mesmerized her earliest admirers, but which would later become a catalyst for her critics.  Even the typically laconic Andy Warhol quipped that Marisol was 'the first girl artist with glamour.'

Marisol’s early work embraced some of the techniques and visual library of Jasper Johns’ work, as well as encompassing much of the expressive assemblage of Robert Rauschenberg’s Combines.  After being inspired by Jasper John’s Target with Four Faces, she began putting little terracotta figures in her box constructions.  Marisol’s sophisticated aesthetic immediately linked her to the new Pop Art movement, but her work remained in a category of its own, displaying a myriad of influences from sources as diverse as Pre-Colombian art and Surrealist imagery. Even today, Marisol’s art resists any linear curatorial reading.   

Her first exhibition in New York was at the Stable Gallery in 1962, and by 1966 Marisol had created a group of sculptures whose subjects were exclusively women with the artist's features.  Although Marisol has argued that “whatever the artist makes is always a kind of self-portrait,” (Jeff Goldberg “Pop Artist Marisol-20 Years After Her Fame-Recalls Her Life and Loves,” People 3, March 24, 1975, p. 40), these works seem to teeter dangerously on the periphery of narcissism.  Did her repeated use of herself suggest self-absorption, or did it simply reflect that the artist saw herself as a microcosm of present day society? These form-conscious and deeply intelligent sculptures were to debut at the Sidney Janis Gallery in 1966, and among them was The Cocktail Party: an extraordinary tableau which consisted of an elaborate environment of fifteen figures composed of shallow wooden boxes, carved and painted surfaces, plaster casts, objects and pieces of clothing among which thirteen are guests and two servants.  All are the physical likeness of Marisol and representational of individuals she knew. Marisol dresses her women in ball gowns with elaborate hairstyles, and dons them with a litany of found objects accented with personal belongings. The most literal image is the figure formed out of a dress hinged to a panel that suggests a figure who has removed herself from the scene in order to watch and observe. Above the dress a smirking photograph of Marisol is mounted, whose watchful eye takes in the unfolding scene.

The Cocktail Party is a visual exercise in experiencing a world where the viewer is at once a voyeur and participant. The figures, however, are seemingly signifiers of concrete social and psychological conditions, and are shaped and molded on a specific trajectory socially constituted and specifically subjective.  They do not interact with one another, rather they are seemingly self absorbed with their own existence.  This paradoxical social alienation was described at the time as “… frozen in an elegant trance as if they were creatures in a dollhouse waiting for a magic wand to bring them to life.” (Nancy Grove, Magical Mixtures: Marisol Portrait Sculpture, Washington, D.C. 1991, p. 26).  However, a more officious reading suggests that the assemblage is a scathing critique of the emptiness of high society, masked in the beauty and whimsy of the forms.  Executed from 1965-1966, years marked by social and cultural rebellion, Marisol noted “… in the ‘60s there was a rebellion against what was proper and boring…I wanted to satirize the new society, but I really liked the people. I did a lot of self-portraits then because it was a time for searching for one’s identity. I looked at all of my faces, all in different wood, and asked, Who am I?” (Ibid)