A self-taught artist, Sobel invented her own painting process. According to her son, "she would prepare a ground, which would invariably suggest or trigger some 'idea' for her, whose sudden conception was matched by an equally rapid execution. In her efforts to pin down her conception she would pour the paint, tip the canvas, and blow the wet lacquer." In this painting she achieved a jewel-like, marbled surface by using fast-drying enamel paint. Her automatic technique has been likened to that of the Surrealists. She responded, "I only paint what I feel."

Gallery label from

Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction, April 19 - August 13, 2017

Medium Enamel on canvas
Dimensions 44 7/8 x 29 7/8" (114 x 75.9 cm)
Credit Gift of the artist's family
Object number 1311.1968
Department Painting & Sculpture

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Janet Sobel

Janet Sobel

American, born Ukraine. 1894–1968 2 works online

Janet Sobel was already a mother of five and a grandmother when she took up painting in her Brighton Beach apartment in 1939.

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