TitleDark in the Forest
Artist
Jules Kirschenbaum
(1930 - 2000)
Date1951-1952
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 36 × 29 3/4 in.
Framed: 43 3/8 × 37 1/2 × 3 1/2 in.
SignedSigned at lower right: ***
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, October 2, 1967
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number1681-P
Label TextOften associated with the so-called "Magic Realists" such as Paul Cadmus and George Tooker, Jules Kirschenbaum combined an interest in Northern European Renaissance art with existentialism to create mysterious and sometimes disturbing narrative paintings. The figures in Kirschenbaum's early work are often filled with dread, discomfort, or alienated in some way. The artist considered Dark in the Forest his first significant painting and it includes a portrait of his mother surrounded by detritus. The phrase inscribed on the sheet "dark in the forest, strange as time" is taken from the title of a short story by Thomas Wolfe.
