For Philadelphia Three

Raised in southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia, Pat Steir benefited greatly from that city’s cultural institutions: paintings by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Vincent van Gogh shaped her early artistic education, as did Marcel Duchamp’s iconic Large Glass (1915–23; Philadelphia Museum of Art). For Philadelphia Three—first exhibited as part of the artist’s 2014 solo presentation at Locks Gallery in Philadelphia—was created in this vein. The third in a trio of works named for the city, it seems to evoke the stone-work of the Philadelphia Museum of Art itself in its solidity and its yellow and ochre tones.