Sounds in Rock (Primary Title)
Sounds in Rock #2 (Primary Title)
Theodoros Stamos, American, 1922 - 1997 (Artist)
A key figure in New York’s abstract-art circles of the 1940s, Theodore Stamos found his subjects in the everyday world. Nature, in particular, attracted the artist, who throughout his life collected the plants, rocks, and shells.
Sounds in Rock dates from the year Stamos traveled across the country, finding particular inspiration in the petroglyphs of New Mexico’s Sandia Mountains. As his friend and colleague Barnett Newman commented about a 1947 exhibition of Stamos’s animistic imagery. “His ideographs capture the moment of totemic affinity with the rock and the mushroom, the crayfish and the seawood. One might say that instead of going to the rock, he comes out of it.”
Some object records are not complete and do not reflect VMFA's full and current knowledge. VMFA makes routine updates as records are reviewed and enhanced.