By Emily Burkhart
December 24, 2023
Marisol Escobar (1930-2016), Women and Dog, 1963-1964. Wood, plaster, synthetic polymer, and taxidermied dog head. 73 9/16 x 76 ⅝ x 26 ¾ in. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
“I’ve always wanted to be free in my life and art. It’s as important to me as truth.”
-Marisol Escobar
The French born, Venezuelan-American multimedia artist Marisol Escobar (1930-2016), also known simply as Marisol, created her most iconic sculptural works in the late 1950s and 1960s, during the height of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Although her works are often associated with Pop Art, Marisol’s sculptures were distinct from the observations on mass media and culture put forth by Pop Art friends and peers such as Roy Lichenstein and Andy Warhol. Warhol called her “the first girl artist with glamor.” Using a combination of found objects, wood, and self-portraiture, Marisol’s sculptures satirized patriarchal society, commenting on feminine identity and alienation with wit and humor. In 1968, Marisol left the New York art scene at the height of her renown and traveled the world. She returned to New York again in 1973 ready for a change. She made a series of fish sculptures and designed sets and costumes for Martha Graham and Elisa Monte among others. She was recognized for her sculptural portraits of other artists as well as of historical figures. She addressed poverty and social injustice among other issues until age and illness took their toll. Although she never regained her earlier acclaim, renewed interest in her work in the 21st century has introduced Marisol to a new generation of admirers.
Marisol Escobar circa 1963; Photo courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, and the World Telegram & Sun; Photo by Herman Hiller. Image courtesy of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.
Early Life
Marisol Escobar was actually born María Sol Escobar to Venezuelan parents living in Paris, France, on May 22, 1930. She adopted the common Spanish nickname Marisol in her early teens. Her parents both came from wealthy families and lived off money from oil and real estate investment. This affluence enabled them to travel around Europe, the United States, and Venezuela. The Escobars moved back to their native Venezuela around 1935 and Marisol and her older brother spent the rest of their childhood between New York and Caracas. Marisol displayed an aptitude for drawing from a young age. As patrons of the arts themselves, her parents encouraged her talent by taking her to museums and galleries.
In 1941, when Marisol was eleven, her mother, Josefina, committed suicide. Her father, Gustavo Hernandez Escobar, responded by shipping Marisol off to boarding school in Long Island, New York, for a year. Deeply traumatized by the suicide, Marisol became almost mute after her mother’s passing. An intensely religious child, she coped with her mother’s death by walking on her knees until they bled, tying ropes tightly around her waist in emulation of saints and martyrs, and keeping silent for long periods unless spoken to or for answering questions in school. As she later recalled, “I really didn’t talk for years except for what was absolutely necessary.”
Education
Following her exit from the Long Island boarding school, Marisol attended various schools between New York and Caracas where she was often acclaimed for her artistic ability. The family settled in Los Angeles in 1946, when Marisol was sixteen. There she began her formal arts education with night classes at the Otis Art Institute and at the Jepson Art Institute. She briefly attended the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1949 before moving to New York around 1950 where she took classes at the Art Students League (1951-1963), was a student of artist Hans Hofmann (1952-1955), attended the New School for Social Research (1952), and the Brooklyn Museum Art School (1955-1957) where she became interested in Mexican, Pre-Columbian, and American folk art. She never married or had children. By the late 1950s, when she was in her twenties, Marisol dropped her surname to divest herself of a patrilineal identity and to “stand out from the crowd,” she said. She believed the single moniker would help her become more memorable as an artist.
Marisol Escobar poses in 1958 in New York with her tools and some of her wooden sculptures, including The Large Family Group (1957). Walter Sanders/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. Image courtesy of The Boston Globe.
Artistic Practice
Marisol began her career as a painter and was strongly influenced by Abstract Expressionism, befriending artists such as Willem de Kooning, with whom she had an affair. Her practice combined folk art, dada, and surrealism, illustrating a keen insight into contemporary life. After seeing pre-Columbian art in Mexico while visiting her father and in a New York gallery show in the early 1950s, Marisol began making sculpture in 1954. Initially, she worked in terra-cotta and wood on a small scale using the lost-wax method of casting in bronze. Within a few years, she began focusing on life-size figures and mixed-media assemblages, combining wood with painting and found objects such as in 1957’s The Large Family Group. By 1961-1962, she was concentrating her work on three-dimensional wooden sculptural representations of society types often featuring self-portraiture using inspiration “found in photographs or gleaned from personal memories'' in works including Self-Portrait (1961-1962), The Family (1962), The Family (1963), Women and Dog (1963-1964), La visita (The Visit 1964) and The Party (1965-1966). Marisol explained, “In the beginning, I drew on a piece of wood because I was going to carve it, and then I noticed that I didn’t have to carve it, because it looked as if it was carved already.” Her first New York art exhibition was at the Stable Gallery in 1962. By 1966, Marisol’s work exclusively featured women with her own visage as subjects.
Some Sculptural Works
The Large Family Group (1957)
Marisol Escobar (1930-2016), The Large Family Group, 1957. Painted wood, 37 x 38 x 6 1/2 in. National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. Photo by Lee Stalsworth. Image courtesy of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
The Large Family Group (1957), one of Marisol’s earliest works in wood, reflects the influence of pre-Columbian, American Folk Art, and Cubism on her practice. A family of five stands together with eye popping expressions. The young boy and one of the adults have arms outstretched seeming to invite viewers into their personal space. Formerly in the collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the National Museum of Women in the Arts acquired the piece in 2018. After creating The Large Family Group, Marisol left New York for Rome where she stayed for more than a year. Upon her return, she became associated with the Pop Art movement of the 1960s which enhanced her recognition and popularity. Her friendship with Andy Warhol was particularly fruitful as they were mutual admirers of each other. She made a sculptural portrait of him and appeared in two of his early Factory films, The Kiss (1963) and 13 Most Beautiful Girls (1964).
Marisol Escobar (1930-2016), Andy, 1962-1963. Painted wood, plaster, and leather shoes. Dimensions unavailable. Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Image courtesy of Hyperallergic.
Self-Portrait (1961-1962)
Marisol Escobar (1930-2016), Self-Portrait, 1961-1962. Wood, plaster, marker, paint, graphite, human teeth, gold and plastic, 43 1/2 × 45 1/4 × 75 5/8 in. Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles. Image courtesy of the Hammer Museum.
Marisol’s Self-Portrait (1961-1962), now in the Hammer Museum at UCLA, is an early assemblage piece. Seven strikingly carved heads mostly without necks are arranged across a rectangular block of wood. Two breasts and six bare legs protrude from the front of the piece. Though the work is identified as a self–portrait, only three of the heads bear a positive likeness to Marisol, who often included plaster casts of her own body parts in her work. The other four heads are defined by varying degrees of realism and caricature. Interestingly, Marisol only included two arms, which are drawn on the work rather than sculpted. One arm colored brown covers the heart of the head on the far left while the other is merely an outline on one of the figures, extending downward from a shoulder perhaps. Yellow and dark blue paint covers half the sculpture while the rest remains largely natural wood. Five of the legs are extended toward the viewer with the sixth bent at the knee. Of the six legs, five have bare feet that are plaster casts of Marisol’s own feet (though one is missing a toe) while the sixth leg wears a painted-on black shoe.
The Family (1962)
Marisol Escobar (1930-2016), The Family, 1962. Paint and graphite on wood, sneakers, tinted plaster, door knob and plate, three sections. The Museum of Modern Art, Manhattan, NY. Image courtesy of The Worley Gig.
The Family (1962) is based on an old black and white photograph (below) of a family that Marisol found. As with her other work, the sculpture consists of blocks of wood combining painting and figurative drawing with found objects. Here, the objects include an old door and several pairs of well-worn shoes on the feet of the family members. Marisol has translated the print of the mother’s dress into color from the black and white photo interpreting it in a cheerful rose on beige, the son’s denim overalls become vivid blue, while the daughters’ light-colored dresses become cream. The baby wears a bright white shirt and pants. Unlike her four children, the mother has plaster hands. The family in the photo pose against a closely patterned background, a drape or wallpaper, that Marisol has exploded. Each of her family members are painted on individual wooden panels. With the exception of the baby, these are arrayed against a large French door thus individuating them even as the infant’s board is held by the mother. Additional wood creates the illusion of the legs of a chair that the mother is sitting upon. Although the family’s worn clothes and shoes indicate meager circumstances in the photo, Marisol suggests a bright outlook for them as she faithfully “translate[s] their dignity and charisma” into her ensemble.
Image courtesy of The Worley Gig.
The Family (1963)
Marisol Escobar (1930-2016), The Family, 1963. Wood, metal, graphite, textiles, paint, shoes, plaster and baby carriage. 79 1/2 x 63 x 73 in. Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire. Image courtesy of Artnet News.
In another piece also entitled The Family (1963), Marisol satirizes the ideal American family of the 1960s in a multi-figure, free-standing sculpture. A stylish mother pushes a pram wearing white gloves, pumps, and a blue polka dotted on orange painted wooden dress with breasts protruding. She smiles foolishly beneath a tall crowned, small brimmed hat pulled down over her eyes, thus blinding and distracting her from attending to the four children that surround her and literally boxing her in. She seems oblivious to both the daughters flanking her and to the children in the carriage. The standing young girls gaze straight ahead; the one in a red dress clutches a doll with Marisol’s face drawn on it. The father and husband, the male head of the household, stares directly at the viewer, wearing a tweed sports coat, white shirt, and red tie. He is flattened, encased within a wooden panel. He is the only figure not given three-dimensionality. He is attached to the wall which physically isolates him from the others. In 1963, the Museum of Modern Art in New York included several of Marisol’s sculptures in Americans, a group exhibition designed to highlight relatively unknown, but promising artists. Marisol was exhibited alongside such internationally recognized peers as Richard Anuszkiewicz, Lee Bontecou, Claes Oldenberg, and James Rosenquist. In 1970, Time magazine featured The Family on its cover to illustrate “The U.S. Family: Help!,” an article that lamented the demise of traditional family structures and shifting gender roles in contemporary America.
Women and Dog (1963-1964)
Marisol Escobar (1930-2016), Women and Dog, 1963-1964. Wood, plaster, synthetic polymer, and taxidermied dog head. 73 9/16 x 76 ⅝ x 26 ¾ in. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Marisol mimicked the role of femininity as a feminist tactic in her sculptural grouping Women and Dog, produced between 1963 and 1964. One of her most well-known works, Women and Dog depicts three fashionably dressed women and a young girl along with a wooden-bodied dog sporting a collar and an actual taxidermied canine head–a disconcerting and macabre detail. Equal parts painting, collage, carving, and assemblage, Women and Dog reflects the fascination with everyday life that was fundamental to Pop Art. Two of the women are self-portraits containing multiple plaster casts of Marisol’s face while the middle figure has a small picture of Marisol glued onto it. The child is believed to be a self-portrait as well, suggesting a fluid inhabitation of different female roles and identities. Though the composition may be ambiguous, Marisol has presented the three women walking with the child and dog as objects on display, revealing her interest in social norms and conventions relating to women in society.
La visita (The Visit 1964)
Marisol Escobar (1930-2016), La visita (The Visit), 1964. Painted wood and diverse materials, 59 × 88 in. Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany. Photograph: Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln/Britta Schlier. Image courtesy of Frieze magazine.
Another sculptural group also incorporating three women and a child, La visita (The Visit 1964) consists of three women seated on a red painted wooden sofa with a little girl on a matching ottoman sitting next to them innocently holding a painted apple. “Marisol” sits among them on the right, a plaster cast of her face and hands gives her away. She has draped the wooden representation of herself in her own coat, shoes, and handbag. A cowboy hat perches on the oversized head of the figure on the left. Its face is a photographic image of Marisol. A large wooden keg forms its torso and it wears only one shoe. Who the middle figure sporting a yellow hair bow, white shoes, and exposed plaster breasts may be is less clear. The child in the blue dress on the far right might also be another representation of Marisol. The incongruous figures sit primly in a row. They are self-contained, do not touch or interact. The little girl holding the apple in offering is the only figure in the otherwise static composition who is at all animated. It is interesting to note that apart from the child, the women lack arms; yet, they all have hands that are plaster casts of Marisol’s own.
The Party (1965-1966)
Marisol Escobar (1930-2016), The Party, 1965-1966. Assemblage of fifteen freestanding, life-size figures and three wall panels, with painted wood and carved wood, mirrors, plastic, television set, clothes, shoes, glasses, and other accessories. Variable dimensions. Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio. Photograph by Steven Zucker.
Image courtesy of Flickr.
Another of Marisol’s most iconic works, The Party (1965-1966), also known as The Cocktail Party, made its public debut at the Sidney Janis Gallery in 1966. This assemblage comprises fifteen life-size figures composed of shallow wooden boxes, carved and painted surfaces, plaster casts, found objects and articles of Marisol’s own clothing all arranged in a tableaux. One figure sports a miniature television set for eyes. Thirteen appear to be guests and two waitstaff, as evidenced by the trays of wine glasses the latter hold. Apart from one man in a tuxedo, the figures are all women in Marisol’s likeness, the majority of which have either plaster casts or photographs of Marisol’s face. A sense of alienation and ennui pervades the scene.The figures seem indifferent to each other as Marisol has placed them mostly facing forward and apart. A single figure on the left surveys the scene, as though contemplating the self-absorption of the others.
Marisol explained the repeated use of her own image in much of her early works in a 1989 interview with Paul Gardner of ARTnews: "I did a lot of self-portraits then [1960s] because it was a time of searching for one’s identity. I looked at my faces, all different in wood, and asked, Who am I?" In 1968, Marisol was invited to exhibit The Party at the 34th annual Venice Biennale representing Venezuela. It also appeared at the influential Documenta exhibition in West Germany.
Alice Neel (1900-1984), Marisol, 1981. Oil on canvas, 39 3/4 x 25 7/8 in. Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii. Image courtesy of the Honolulu Museum of Art. Marisol reluctantly sat for an exquisite portrait by her friend the painter Alice Neel.
Late Career and Death
Marisol continued to make art, including paintings, prints, and works on paper in addition to sculpture until near the end of her life. She never again achieved the early renown that she had experienced in the late 1950s and 1960s. Career retrospectives in the 21st century, including a major show organized by the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in 2014 and at the Museo Del Barrio in New York City, which became her first solo show, revived interest in her work. She died in 2016 from complications of Alzheimer’s disease and pneumonia at the age of 85.
A year after her death, it was announced that Marisol had bequeathed her entire estate to the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly known as the Albert-Knox Art Gallery) in Buffalo, New York, which became the first museum to acquire works by Marisol—The Generals (1961–62) in 1962 and Baby Girl (1963) in 1964. In addition to the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, works by Marisol are in the permanent collections of the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Yale University Art Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Boston, and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Netherlands, among many others.
In 2022, the Pérez Art Museum Miami presented an exhibition featuring Marisol and Andy Warhol’s work side by side. Entitled Marisol and Warhol Take New York, the exhibition explored the rising careers of both artists in the 1960s and their influence on each other with an accompanying catalog. The Buffalo AKG Art Museum organized the largest retrospective of Marisol’s work to date for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (October 7, 2023–January 21, 2024), the Toledo Museum of Art (March–June 2024), the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (July 12, 2024 - January 6, 2025), and the Dallas Museum of Art (February 23–July 6, 2025).
Legacy
Through a parody of women and fashion, Marisol attempted to provoke social change. The art historian Holly Williams asserts that Marisol’s sculptural works toyed with the prescribed social roles and restraints faced by women during the postwar period through her depiction of the complexities of femininity as a perceived truth. By displaying the essential aspects of femininity using an assemblage of plaster casts, wooden blocks, woodcarving, drawings, photography, paint, and pieces of contemporary clothing, Marisol was able to comment on the social construct of "woman" as an unstable entity, a female identity that was most commonly determined by the male onlooker, as either mother, seductress, or partner. By juxtaposing different signifiers of femininity, Marisol explained the ways in which "femininity" is culturally produced. Using a feminist technique, Marisol disrupted the patriarchal values of society through forms of mimicry, imitation, and exaggeration in her work.