Est-ce une Ligne? (Is it a Line?) Triptych

Basic Information

Title: Est-ce une Ligne? (Is it a Line?) Triptych
Artist(s): Vera Molnar
Date Created: 2019
Unframed Dimensions: 31.5 x 94.5 in.
Medium: acrylic on canvas
Inventory ID: Molnar-2019-03

Description

signed, titled, and dated on the reverse of the canvas
each panel measures 31.5 x 31.5″

exhibited in “Is it a Line” A selection of Vera Molnar works from 1978 to 2019 at Vintage Galéria, Budapest, Hungary, 11/30/2021 – 01/28/2022
https://vintage.hu/exhibitions/vera-molnar-est-ce-une-ligne

“Is it a line? – Vera Molnar could have asked the question countless times. A selection of her works from 1978 to 2019 is on view at Vintage Galéria’s current show, which borrows its title from one of Molnar’s exhibited works (Est-ce Une Ligne?, 1985-2019). One-line works form a significant group in the artist’s oeuvre (e.g. Une ligne, 1997). Of their origin, Molnar told the following story in an interview in 2019: “What I’m experimenting with right now is that I put my pencil on the paper and then proceed from there without lifting it; then I lift it, and the piece is ready. Picasso also did similar things, he has a book about it, too. However, the real inspiration was an engraving by Claude Mellan that I happened upon earlier. He made an image of Jesus where he moved his burin in circles altering only the width of the line. Imagine, you see a picture consisting of a single line that is at times thicker and then thinner again. I took the ‘one-liner’ bait, and that’s what I’m working on right now. Maybe these sketches will become an installation or, perhaps, something else, I don’t know yet.” Among other things, this could be the idea based on what the work consisting of three canvases was created, composed of just one line, a section on each canvas, continuing on the next. But can we really consider this as a single line?”
– Vintage Galéria press release

Image of Vera Molnar’s sketchbook by Laszlo Horvath