Woman Reading a Bible from the collection of Miriam McClung

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Woman Reading a Bible, 1957

Oil on Linen Canvas

42 x 50.25 x 0.75 in

Inv: 160-MM

NFS

Not For Sale

This 1957 oil painting shows a woman bent over her Bible, painted in loose washes of black, yellow, green, pink, and deep blue against a colorful, abstract background. McClung saw this woman during her senior year at the University of Alabama, when she attended a Sunday school class at Bryce Mental Hospital in Northport, Alabama. Every time she visited, the woman was reading her Bible, and that quiet devotion stuck with McClung enough that she wanted to capture it in paint. The contrast between the brighter background on the right side of the painting and the darker, deeper colors on the left hints at the woman's mental state, suggesting both the comfort she found in her faith and the struggle she was living through. Made at the height of Abstract Expressionism, which the university was emphasizing to its undergraduates at the time, this is an important piece in McClung's body of work, capturing both a moment of real faith and a young artist working in the dominant style of her training.

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