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Image of Fire Suit

Fire Suit
Sculpture

1983
98 x 32 x 23 in. (248.92 x 81.28 x 58.42 cm)

Viola Frey (Lodi, California, 1933 - 2004, Oakland, California)

Object Type: Sculpture
Medium and Support: Ceramic with glazes
Credit Line: Museum purchase with funds contributed by the Council of 100, partial gift of Byron Cohen, and additional funds from the Collection Committee, in honor of the San Jose Museum of Art's 35th anniversary.
Accession Number: 2003.16

Exhibition


Character Studies: Clay from the Collection, October 3, 2015 - February 7, 2016, New Wing, Second Floor, North Gallery, San José Museum of Art.

Tales from the Kiln: Contemporary Ceramics, September 1, 2005 – July 9, 2006, New Wing, Second Floor, North Gallery, San José Museum of Art.

It's About Time: Celebrating 35 Years, October 3, 2004 - February 13, 2005, New Wing, Gibson Family Gallery and Plaza Gallery, First Floor, San José Museum of Art.

SJMA Label Text


Renegade Humor (2012)

Viola Frey is best known for her monumental ceramic figures of men in power-suits and women wearing vibrant clothing. A dynamic palette and brushwork give all her work expressive vigor and whimsy and often infuse ungainly, caricatured figures with a humorous appearance. A quintessential example of Frey’s work, Fire Suit, depicts a towering man dressed in a brilliant red suit. He stands rigidly, both feet planted firmly on the ground ashe confronts the viewer and demands attention. Despite the sense of challenging engagement, the figure also fits firmly within Frey’s imaginary world, where people seem permanently fixed, as Patterson Sims remarked, in “some unplaceable decade between 1920 and 1960, when women dressed in strongly patterned prints and men wore ties and tightly buttoned suits.”


Tales from the Kiln: Contemporary Ceramics (2005-2006)

Viola Frey’s vibrant, larger-than-life clay sculptures are often cartoonish, situated somewhere between the Bay Area Figurative artists’ love for gesture and brilliant color, and the U.C. Davis School’s penchant for outlandish humor. Frey’s expertly painted and textured surfaces reveal her ability to combine elements of sculpture and painting. In Fire Suit the humor comes through in the man’s ungainly stance, painfully earnest expression, and his comic-book-red “power” suit paired with paint-splattered shoes—the awkwardness nearly canceling out the potential for intimidation.

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Dimensions
  • Sculpture Dimensions: 98 x 32 x 23 in. (248.92 x 81.28 x 58.42 cm)

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