Ree Morton (American, 1936-1977)
Untitled (Signs of Love) 1976
oil on plywood with celastic curtain
Helen M. Danforth Acquisition Fund 2005.3

In the late 1960s Ree Morton abandoned her middle-class life as a wife, nurse, and mother to become an artist. She was highly influential in the 1970s, and her work still seems remarkably fresh today. An early proponent of “installation art,” Morton experimented with nontraditional materials, integrating elements of painting and sculpture with the architectural site in which the work was presented. Untitled (Signs of Love) embodies ideas about decoration, domesticity, sentimentality, and theatricality, characteristics traditionally associated with the feminine and not previously considered appropriate for “high” art.

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