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Siena Cathedral
Siena Cathedral
© Audrey Flack. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

Siena Cathedral

Artist (Born in New York, New York, 1931)
Date1971
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions67 5/8 x 47 7/8 x 2 1/2 inches (171.8 x 121.6 x 6.4 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineGift of Louis K. and Susan P. Meisel, New York
Object number2001.24.12
Collections
  • ART OF THE UNITED STATES
  • MODERN & CONTEMPORARY
Label TextAudrey Flack is known for her Photorealist works inspired by photographs and postcards of popular tourist destinations, as in this painting of the cathedral in Siena, Italy. Photorealism emerged in the late 1960s as a reaction against preceding artistic movements that favored abstraction. Photorealist artists sought more objective subject matter through the meticulous and exact reproduction of a photograph in paint. The composition, use of color, and subject matter in Siena Cathedral refer to the Impressionist paintings of Claude Monet. In 1894, Monet painted approximately forty versions of the cathedral in Rouen, France. The vantage point of Flack’s painting is comparable to that used by Monet and, although these works are of different cathedrals, architectural similarities heighten the connection. Flack’s allusions both to photography and Monet’s paintings relate to ideas of serial image making and reproduction. Monet would often paint the same subject on a number of canvases with slight variations, while photography enabled Photorealist painters to explore new ways of replicating images.