The Sisters Apollinax

Artist Duncan Stuart American, 1919–2001

Date1948

MediumCasein on paper

Dimensions23 3/4 x 18 5/16 in. (60.3 x 46.5 cm)
Frame: 30 3/8 x 24 3/4 x 3 1/2 in. (77.2 x 62.9 x 8.9 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest)

Object numberG.49.1.2

On View

Not on view

Label Text
Duncan Stuart did this painting the same year he joined the faculty of the School of Design at North Carolina State University. In addition to his three decades there as a teacher, Stuart was also a mathematician and a self- taught musician. All these interests informed his art. The smoothly articulated, carefully balanced composition combines the intellectual and the sensuous-and the mysterious. Suspended in a coral-colored undersea world are two partially realized figures whose muted dialogue speaks through the work's elegant formal rhythms and chromatic nuances.
The title was an afterthought. About the time he completed the painting, Stuart read T. S. Eliot's "Mr. Apollinax," a poem about a man given to laughter whose talk leaves listeners wondering "But after all what did he mean?" It occurred to the artist that these women "would be the kind of sisters Mr. Apollinax would have."
ProvenanceCreated North Carolina, 1948; collection of the artist; sold to NCMA, 1949.Published ReferencesNorth Carolina Artists' Thirteenth Annual Exhibition (brochure) (Raleigh: North Carolina State Arts Society, 1949), no. 52.

"People Oppose Experts on Painting Choice," Greensboro, NC: Daily News (December 5, 1949), illus.

Award Winners - Part Two," North Carolina Museum of Art Calendar of Art Events 3, no. 8 (May 1960), mentioned and illus. (b-w) unnumbered page.

Acquisitions from North Carolina Annuals, 1946-1966 (exhibition catalogue) (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1967), cat. no. 40, illus. (b-w).

"Outgoing Loans to Temporary Exhibitions," North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 13, no. 3 (1976), listed 60.

Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, State Art Gallery, State Library Building, "North Carolina Artists' Thirteenth Annual Exhibition," December 1, 1949-January 1, 1950, no. 52.

Bellhaven, NC, Library, March 1958.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina State College, January 1959.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Acquisitions from North Carolina Annuals, 1946-1966," March 12-26, 1967, cat. no. 40, illus. (b-w).

Artrain Southeastern Tour: A Program of the Michigan Council for the Arts, April 1-September 30, 1974.
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