Images(3)

Girl

Artist Bob Trotman American, born 1947

Date2002

MediumPaint and tempera on white pine, poplar, and basswood, with small amount of wax

Dimensions65 x 49 x 41in. (165.1 x 124.5 x 104.1 cm)

ClassificationsSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the William R. Roberson Jr. and Frances M. Roberson Endowed Fund for North Carolina Art

Object number2003.1

On View

Not on view

Label TextAdolescence is often recalled as one of the most traumatic, confusing times in a person’s life—an opinion literally displayed in Trotman’s Girl. Here a primly dressed teenage girl is turned upside down, balanced precariously on her head while her legs flail in the air above her. Her emotions are physically displayed through her position as well as her body. The long cracks typical of Trotman’s sculptures enhance the feeling that this girl is already coming apart at the seams.
[L. Dougherty, 2016]

Furniture maker turned figurative sculptor, North Carolina's Bob Trotman exploits the expressive qualities inherent in wood. He carves this medium into representative holdovers from 1950s middle-class America. Girl and the rest of these "model citizens" adhere to a bland dress code that maintains its tidiness in spite of the body's contortions. Trotman captures each figure in an unlikely pose that implies distress or danger, throwing the viewer off balance as well.

The toppling-over Girl appears in dialogue with Joel Shapiro's bronze sculpture, also in the Museum's collection, which might be seen as someone struggling to regain an upright position. Girl also invites comparison with another work in wood, Tilmann Riemenschneider's Female Saint, also owned by the Museum. The late-medieval German sculptor is a lasting source of inspiration for Trotman, who, in response to the lindenwood saint, wrote, "What better image of human suffering and perseverance than this living material that encapsulates years one growth ring at a time?"
[L. Dougherty, 2004]ProvenanceThe artist; purchased by NCMA 2003.Published ReferencesBob Trotman: Model Citizens (exhibition brochure) (Richmond, VA: Hand Workshop Art Center, 2002), illus. in progress (b-w).

Dinah Ryan, "Bob Trotman" (exhibition review) in Sculpture 21, no. 10, mentioned 79.

Curtia James, "Bob Trotman" (exhibition review) in Art Papers 27, no. 1, mentioned 41.

Preview: The Magazine of the North Carolina Museum of Art (January/ February 2003), illus. (color) 9.

Nell Joslin, "Illusions in carved wood," Raleigh: News and Observer (May 9, 2004), discussed 1G, 3G, illus. (color) 1G, illus. of work being installed (b-w) 3G.

Bob Trotman: Model Citizens (exhibition brochure) (Nashville, TN: Frist Center for the Visual Arts, 2007), no. 1, briefly discussed and illus. (color), unpaginated.

Linda J. Dougherty, entry for Girl, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2010), 552, illus. (color) 553.

Linda Johnson Dougherty, et al, Bob Trotman: Inverted Utopias (exhibition catalogue) (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2010), illus. (color) 13, 75, detail (color) 12, 13.

David Menconi, “Focus on homegrown art: Museum spotlights artists from across the state,” Raleigh News & Observer (September 1, 2013), briefly discussed 1D, illus. (color) 3D.

Victoria Scott-Miller, The Museum Lives in Me (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2022), illus 21 (artist's illustration).Exhibition HistoryRichmond, VA, Hand Workshop Art Center, "Bob Trotman: Model Citizens," May 24-July 21, 2002, brochure.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Objects of Desire: The Museum Collects, 1994-2004," July 18, 2004-February 27, 2005.

Nashville, TN, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, "Bob Trotman: Model Citizens," November 10, 2006-February 11, 2007, brochure, no. 1, illus. (color).

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Bob Trotman: Inverted Utopias," November 7, 2010-March 27, 2011; Hickory, NC, Hickory Museum of Art, April 24-June 26, 2011.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Close to Home,” August 18, 2013–August 10, 2014.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “To Be Young: Coming of Age in the Contemporary,” April 3, 2021–February 6, 2022.
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