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Artworks
Hugh Steers
Crow, 1988Oil on canvas37 1/2 x 30 1/8 in
95.25 x 76.83 cmEHS054Further images
In 1988, one year after receiving his positive HIV diagnosis, Hugh Steers painted two compositions that featured crows, mythological harbingers of deaths. These crow works reveal the artist's struggle to...In 1988, one year after receiving his positive HIV diagnosis, Hugh Steers painted two compositions that featured crows, mythological harbingers of deaths. These crow works reveal the artist's struggle to come to terms with his own mortality as he lived life and made art under the specter of AIDS. Indicative of this struggle, Crows (1988) features a bird flying into the face of a partially clothed man as though he wants to blind him. Its portentous feathered form recalls the nightmarish swarm of owls and bats from Francisco Goya’s aquatint, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (c. 1799), revealing the influence of the Western art historical canon on Steers's practice.Provenance
Estate of Hugh Steers
Literature
Cotter, Holland. “4 Art Gallery Shows to See Right Now.” The New York Times, March 24, 2021.
Publications
Schröder, Barbara and Karen Kelly, eds. Hugh Steers: The Complete Paintings, 1983-1994. New York: Visual AIDS, 2015, pp. 108, 199.
