Stephen Posen
Susan's Wardrobe, 1966
Oil on shaped novaply with rope
48h x 96w x 1 1/4d in
© Stephen Posen Photo by Argenis Apolinario Courtesy the artist and Vito Schnabel Gallery
For the artist Stephen Posen, the 1960s were promising indeed. He was a kid from St. Louis who went to Yale and impressed people with his painting ability, coming of age alongside schoolmates who were future art stars: Richard Serra, Chuck Close and Brice Marden.
By the early 1970s, his trompe l’oeil paintings of fabric-covered still lifes were being featured at Documenta and the Whitney Museum of American Art. The New York Times critic John Canaday, citing two meticulously executed canvases that depicted cloth-covered photographs, compared him to Vermeer, in a rave.