{"secondaryobjectnumber":null,"periodterms":[],"creditline":"Gift of Cynthia Hazen Polsky","caption":"Elizabeth Murray (American, 1940–2007), Beginner, 1976. Oil on canvas; 285.8 × 288.8 × 4 cm, 122 × 120 × 8 in., 266 lb (crate, weight taken with painting inside). Gift of Cynthia Hazen Polsky (1998-18)","cultureterms":[{"id":2038492,"culture":"American"}],"type":"artobject","dimensionsproposed":"","terms":[{"id":2056370,"term":"red","aatid":300126225,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2059820,"term":"bluish gray","aatid":300129747,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2061162,"term":"gray (color)","aatid":300130811,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2061306,"term":"black","aatid":300130920,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2052977,"term":"paintings","aatid":300033618,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2159333,"term":"knots (motifs)","aatid":300009724,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2095701,"term":"abstraction","aatid":300056508,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2038492,"term":"American","aatid":300107956,"termtype":"Culture"},{"id":2053145,"term":"oil paintings","aatid":300033799,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2167780,"term":"oil paint","aatid":300015050,"termtype":"Materials"},{"id":2171344,"term":"canvas","aatid":null,"termtype":"Materials"}],"geography":[],"dimensionelements":[{"element":"Overall","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"285.80"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"288.80"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Depth","units":"centimeters","dimension":"4.00"},{"element":"crate","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"309.87"},{"element":"crate","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"304.79"},{"element":"crate","type":"Depth","units":"centimeters","dimension":"20.31"},{"element":"crate","type":"Weight","units":"kilograms","dimension":"120.65"}],"markings":null,"accessionyear":"1998-01-01","newaccession":0,"makers":[{"id":3929,"displayname":"Elizabeth Murray","displaydate":"American, 1940–2007","datebegin":1940,"dateend":2007,"prefix":null,"suffix":null,"role":"Artist","displaymaker":"Elizabeth Murray, American, 1940–2007","displayorder":1}],"datecomputed":1976,"signed":null,"restrictions":"Restricted Download - Under Copyright","classification":"Paintings","packages":[{"packageid":197269,"name":"web_highlights -revised 2021"}],"catalograisonne":null,"classifications":[{"id":2053145,"classification":"oil paintings"},{"id":2052977,"classification":"paintings"}],"exhibitions":[],"cultures":[],"primaryimage":["https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/1998-18"],"displaytitle":"Beginner","displayculture":null,"displaymaker":"Elizabeth Murray, American, 1940–2007","captionhtml":"Elizabeth Murray (American, 1940–2007), <i>Beginner</i>, 1976. Oil on canvas; 285.8 × 288.8 × 4 cm, 122 × 120 × 8 in., 266 lb (crate, weight taken with painting inside). Gift of Cynthia Hazen Polsky (1998-18)","displaydate":"1976","medium":"Oil on canvas","media":[{"id":336,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/1998-18","isprimary":1,"rank":1,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted Download - Under Copyright","caption":"Luna Digitization Project"}],"displayperiod":null,"extended_content":false,"campuscollections":"false","bibliography":[{"boilertext":"\"Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1998,\" <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University </em>58, no. 1/2 (1999): p. 86-123.","citation":"\"Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1998,\" <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University </em>58, no. 1/2 (1999): p. 86-123., pp. 89–90 (illus.)","date":1999,"id":3044,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/3774795"},{"boilertext":"<i>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection</i> (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007)","citation":"<i>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection</i> (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 258 (illus.)","date":2007,"id":474,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/191864564"},{"boilertext":"<i>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections </i>(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013)","citation":"<i>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections </i>(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 289","date":2013,"id":1994,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/865020505"}],"nowebuse":"False","periods":[],"department":"Modern and Contemporary Art","attribute_groups":[{"id":2199324,"term":"Art Since 1945","termtype":"Collecting Area"},{"id":2199325,"term":"North American Art","termtype":"Collecting Area"}],"daterange":"A.D. 1945-present","dateend":1976,"depicted":[],"titles":[{"title":"Beginner","titletype":"Primary Title","displayorder":1}],"hasimage":"true","creditlinerepro":"© 2013 The Murray-Holman Family Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York","objectnumber":"1998-18","inscribed":null,"texts":[{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Handbook Entry","textentryhtml":"\r\nElizabeth Murray arrived in New York in 1967, following a period of study at the Art Institute of Chicago and Mills College in Oakland, California. Working at an oblique angle to Minimalism, the dominant trend at the time, and inspired by the examples of both Cubism and Surrealism, Murray emphasized facture over impersonality and eccentricity over symmetry. As its title implies, <I>Beginner</I> represents an ending as well as a beginning; specifically, it symbolizes the start of a new phase of the artist’s career, one inaugurated by this very painting. An important transitional work, <I>Beginner</I> ushered in a series of monumental canvases characterized by elasticity, warp, and torque, along with emphatic materiality and biomorphic shapes. Murray once compared the dark, bulbous form that jostles the upper right portion of the painting to \"Tweety Bird,\" a reference to her long-standing fascination with cartoons and Walt Disney. Painted in 1976, one year before Murray was appointed lecturer at Princeton University, <I>Beginner</I> was included in the artist’s first solo &shy;exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery that same year. </P></SPAN>","remarks":null},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Provenance","textentryhtml":"[Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, New York], sold; to Cynthia Hazen Polsky, New York, New York, gift; to Princeton University Art Museum, 1998.","remarks":"deed of gift checked"}],"datebegin":1976,"sortnumber":"1998   18","published_date":"2026-03-31 02:26:39.695746","objectid":37859,"dimensions":"285.8 × 288.8 × 4 cm (112 1/2 × 113 11/16 × 1 9/16 in.)","on_view":false}