TOM WESSELMANN. Bedroom Painting No. 44, 1981. Oil on canvas, 72 x 68 inches (182.9 x 172.7 cm). © 2018 Estate of Tom Wesselmann / VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein.

Tom Wesselmann | Bedroom Painting No. 44

Inspired by Henri Matisse’s use of color, line, and shape, Wesselmann’s Bedroom Paintings invite the viewer into a scene of easy eroticism and pleasurable banality. Each painting features a puzzling disjuncture of scales, which fail to correspond to a realistic, recessive space. The Bedroom Paintings series demonstrates Wesselmann’s singular talent for updating established conventions, creating artworks that speak to their contemporary moment in unique and provocative ways.