TOM WESSELMANN

Painting, sex, and humor are the most important things in my life.

—Tom Wesselmann

Tom Wesselmann’s Bedroom Painting no. 44 (1981) invites its viewer into a scene of easy eroticism and pleasurable banality. Its central subject, an anonymous female model, is depicted in profile, her soft curves in contrast with the sharp edges of the light switch and curtain. Each element asserts itself against the others, producing a puzzling disjuncture of scales that refuses to correspond to a realistic space. Synthesizing a broad array of influences, Bedroom Painting no. 44 demonstrates Wesselmann’s singular talent for renewing established conventions, creating artworks that speak to their contemporary moment in unique and provocative ways.

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