TV Clown
1988
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
lithograph in black on Transpagra wove paper
Dimensions
image: 70.17 × 105.73 cm (27 5/8 × 41 5/8 in.) sheet: 76.2 × 111.76 cm (30 × 44 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Florian Carr Fund and Gift of the Print Research Foundation
Accession Number
2008.115.233
Art Historical Context
**TV Clown** (1988) by Bruceuman is a commanding lithograph rendered in bold black ink on translucent Transpagra wove paper, measuring an expansive image of 70.17 × 105.73 cm (27 5/8 × 41 5/8 in.) on a sheet of 76.2 × 111.76 cm (30 × 44 in.). Housed in the National Gallery of Art's Reba and Dave Williams Collection, this print exemplifies Nauman's provocative conceptual style, where he often blurred lines between high art and everyday media imagery. Created in the late 1980s amid rising television saturation, the title evokes the garish world of TV entertainment, inviting viewers to confront t...
About the Artist
Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman, born on December 6, 1941, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, grew up in a family frequently uprooted by his father's career as a General Electric engineer. After studying mathematics, physics, and art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned a BS in 1964, Nauman pursued an MFA at the University of California, Davis in 1966. There, he studied under William T. Wiley and Robert Arne...