Study for Face #3 1967

Tom Wesselmann painted this face study using acrylic and charcoal on canvas. I feel like I can see him working on this, turning it this way and that, trying to get the angle just right. I'm fascinated by the color: That pop-y, almost cartoonish blue eyeshadow. And the tongue sticking out, painted a bright, wet pink. The rendering is so flat, so graphic. You can really see the influence of Pop Art here, that interest in the commercial and the everyday. Wesselmann was part of a generation of artists who were looking at advertising, at billboards, at the way images circulate in our culture, and bringing that into their work. He was in conversation with people like Warhol and Lichtenstein, all riffing on similar ideas. It’s painting as a kind of performance, a way of thinking through images and ideas. Wesselmann is inviting us to look closely, to see the world in a new, maybe slightly uncomfortable way.