Original artwork of a mother and child by Edie Sedgwick, accomplished in mixed media on 15 x 19 canvas board, depicting a nude woman seated and holding a child in a full-length pose, signed along the bottom edge, “ES-63.” In fine condition, with some dampstaining to the right edge.
In the fall of 1962, Sedgwick was sent to the Silver Hill psychiatric hospital and was eventually moved to Bloomingdale, the Westchester Division of New York Hospital, residencies that allowed her to focus on artwork during occupational therapy sessions. Towards the end of her stay at the latter, Sedgwick had an abortion. While it’s unknown if she created this work before or after, its timing and subject matter infer that Sedgwick was indeed grappling with the idea of motherhood. She left Bloomingdale soon thereafter and, at the age of 20, she moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to study art with her cousin Lily Saarinen in the fall of 1963.
From the Michael Post Collection.
