Glenn Lowry: Escada, or Staircase, is Clark's earliest work in this exhibition. Curator Connie Butler:
Connie Butler: : Escada was painted in 1948, prior to the time when Lygia went to Paris to study the European masters there. But already, I think, in this painting, one can see the influence of not only Cubism - Braque and Picasso - but also of Léger and Mondrian, two of her primary influences.
The spiral of the staircase, in this painting, which leads down beyond the space of the viewer, down beyond the space which we can actually see, I think initiates a kind of movement in the painting that activates it.
What's so beautiful about this work is the movement that's already within this painting that I think then becomes a kind of… movement that one can trace throughout her career.
Glenn Lowry: Curator Luis Perez-Oramas:
Luis Perez-Oramas: This is a seminal painting that anticipates in what it represents, in its structure, and in the architectural depiction itself, a whole series of issues that will be key and central to Clark until the end of her career.
