Paulette and Karla [right panel]
1980
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
color sugarlift aquatint, drypoint, and spitbite aquatint in three panels on Rives BFK paper
Dimensions
sheet: 60.3 x 90.5 cm (23 3/4 x 35 5/8 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Kathan Brown
Accession Number
1998.40.331
Art Historical Context
Robert Kushner's *Paulette and Karla [right panel]* (1980) is a vibrant triptych print that exemplifies the artist's pivotal role in the Pattern and Decoration movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This right panel, part of a three-panel composition on luxurious Rives BFK paper, measures 60.3 x 90.5 cm and captures Kushner's exuberant style—rich with ornamental motifs, bold colors, and fluid forms inspired by textiles, flora, and the female figure. Created during a time when artists like Kushner rebelled against minimalist austerity, embracing decorative excess as a form of cultural recl...
About the Artist
Robert Kushner
Robert Kushner, born in 1949 in Pasadena, California, grew up in an artistic household profoundly shaped by his mother, Dorothy Browdy Kushner, a California Modernist painter whose studio filled with abstractions, printmaking, taxidermy, and succulents sparked his early creativity. He studied at the University of California, San Diego, where his senior exhibition in 1971 featured the performance *...