Sunset (Medusa)

Artist Eugene Berman American, born Russia, 1899–1972

Date1945

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensionsoverall: 57 5/8 × 45 in. (146.4 × 114.3 cm)
frame: 64 5/8 × 52 1/8 × 2 5/8 in. (164.1 × 132.4 × 6.7 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest) in honor of Beth Cummings Paschal

Object numberG.74.8.2

On View

On view

Label Text
Eugene Berman rejected modernism’s faith in progress and the future. Instead, he drew inspiration from Classical antiquity, painting strange and melancholy reveries on time and the transience of life. Beginning in the 1940s, he painted a series of enigmatic women, each solitary against a backdrop of decay. Often the figures stand or sit with their backs to the viewer, or crouch with their faces hidden, as in Sunset (Medusa). In each painting, the woman is visually and emotionally remote. Berman’s sense of drama derived from his work as a celebrated theatrical designer.

In Sunset (Medusa) the female figure, clothed in velvet and lace, kneels grandly on a shallow stage before a ruined wall—an ominous setting for this eerie and uncertain drama. The heightened clarity of the image as much as the trompe l’oeil monogram at the bottom edge suggest Northern Renaissance art, specifically that of the German master Albrecht Dürer. According to Emily Genauer, writing in Art Digest in 1949, Berman explained that the “curious, spattered, almost mouldy surface” of his paintings symbolized “all the bullet-holes with which the world’s walls have been peppered during [World War II], as well as our whole moral and spiritual degeneration.” The beauty of the writhing locks of Berman’s Medusa, modeled by the film actress Ona Munson (later Berman’s wife), suggests a comic, Freudian interpre-tation of the snake-haired Gorgon of Greek mythology, whose horrific features turned men to stone.
ProvenanceCreated United States, 1945; collection of the artist; [Julien Levy Gallery, New York, 1946;] [M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 1951–1966]; returned to artist; Eugene Berman estate, 1972; [Larcada Gallery, New York]; sold to NCMA, 1974.
Published ReferencesJo Gibbs, "Berman Paints in the Grand Tradition," Art Digest 20 (March 15, 1946), 8, illus. (b-w, as Sunset)

Julien Levy, ed., Eugene Berman (New York: American Studio Books,1946), illus. (b-w) pl. XCIII (as Sunset-Medusa).

Eugène Berman (exhibition catalogue) (Paris: M. Knoedler & Cie., 1964), cat. no. 7, illus. (b-w).

Paul Cummings, A Dictionary of Contemporary American Artists, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1971), illus. (b-w) 67.

The Graphic Work of Eugene Berman (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1971),70-71.

Memorial Exhibition: Eugene Berman, Philip Evergood, John Folinsbee, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Jacques Lipshitz, Franklin Watkins (exhibition catalogue) (New York: American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1974), cat. no. 26.

Malcolm South, ed., Mythical and Fabulous Creatures: A Resource Book and Research Guide (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), discussed 174, illus. (b-w) fig. 14.

Introduction to the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1992), illus. (b-w) 266.

Angela Davis-Gardner, "Medusa," in The Store of Joys, Huston Paschal, ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1997), 90-91, illus. (color) 90.

Virginia Burden, entry for Sunset (Medusa), in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, Rebecca Martin Nagy, ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1998), 224, illus. (color).

Margot H. Knight, "As I See It," North Carolina Museum of Art Preview and Calendar of Events (May/June 2001), 29, illus. (b-w).

Julia Freifeld, "As I See It," North Carolina Museum of Art Preview and Calendar of Events (July/Aug 2001), mentioned 29.

M. Therese Southgate, M.D., "The Cover," JAMA:The Journal of the American Medical Association 288, no. 4 (July 24/31, 2002), discussed 417, illus. (color) 409, and cover.

John W. Coffey, entry for Sunset (Medusa), in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2010), 464, illus. (color) 465.
Exhibition HistoryNew York, NY, Julien Levy Gallery, "Eugene Berman," March 1946.

New York, NY, M. Knoedler & Co., 1952.

Paris, M. Knoedler & Cie., "Eugène Berman," November 6-28, 1964, cat. no. 7 (as Sunset Medusa), illus. (b-w).

[New York, NY, Larcada Gallery, 1970.]

New York, NY, American Academy of Arts and Letters, "Memorial Exhibition: Eugene Berman, Philip Evergood, John Folinsbee, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Jacques Lipshitz, Franklin Watkins," March 8-April 7, 1974, no. 26 (as Sunset Medusa).

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Recent Acquisitions," November 23, 1975-February 1, 1976.

Paris, France, Musée Marmottan Monet, "Theatres of Melancholy. The Neo-Romantics
in Paris and Beyond," March 8–June 18, 2023.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "“a little offbeat, a little dreamy, and mysterious,” November 15, 2023-present. Object Rights Statement

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