Evening Dress with Shawl

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Object Name: 
Sculpture
Title: 
Evening Dress with Shawl
Accession Number: 
2005.3.21
Dimensions: 
Overall H: 150 cm, W: 121 cm, D: 59.5 cm
Location: 
On Display
Date: 
2004
Credit Line: 
Gift in part of the Ennion Society
Web Description: 
LaMonte is well known for her hauntingly beautiful draped female figures that evoke the fragmented bodies of classical antiquity as well as the white marble statues of 19th-century American neoclassicism. By using translucent colorless cast glass, rather than opaque stone, LaMonte gives her images a sense of ghostliness and spirituality. One of LaMonte’s primary subjects is the dress, which is always life-size, whether it is for an infant, a young girl, or a woman. The artist explores a variety of styles of clothing in her work, from stiff and frilly Victorian dresses to idealized classical drapery. Her fashion choices reflect changing notions of beauty: how women view themselves, and how they are viewed by others. Casting glass on such a large scale is difficult. LaMonte worked her way up from small castings to medium-sized pieces. In recent years, she has worked in the Czech Republic. She uses art students and herself as models for the interiors of her sculptures. The process of moldmaking is complex; separate models are made of the bodies and the clothing. The interior and exterior forms are articulated in the final casting in glass. LaMonte says: “For 10 years I have been working with the female figure in absentia in an exploration of beauty, a celebration of symmetry and physical harmony. Although beauty might look different in different societies, it is always about pleasure. The absent figure is important to me because it tempers the undemanding pleasure of beauty with insinuations of loss and mortality.”
Provenance: 
Heller Gallery, Source
2005-04-27
Category: 
Color: 
Material: 
Primary Description: 
Sculpture, "Evening Dress with Shawl". Colorless glass; cast in five sections, sandblasted, acid-polished, assembled. Dress is made up of three stacking central sections and two outer sections making up the shawl.
Venue(s)
Corning Museum of Glass
Changing Exhibitions Gallery
Karen LaMonte (2020) illustrated, pp. 48, 78, 266;
The Mistress: Poems (2016) illustrated, cover, pp. 116, 21, 41, 59, 75, 93, 103; BIB# 169666
Jurors' Choice (2014) illustrated, p. 80, top; BIB# AI98391
CTbK_OTO KATO N3KYCTBO (2014) illustrated, p. 89, bottom right; BIB# 142483
Escort Guide to the Galleries (2013) illustrated, p. 6; BIB# 134015
Escort Guide to the Galleries [V4/2013] (2013) illustrated, p. 6; BIB# 134856
Karen LaMonte: Floating World (2013) illustrated, pp. 164-165 (fig. 10); BIB# 135116
Favorite Things (2012) illustrated, back cover, right; BIB# AI88438
Corning Museum of Glass 60 Years (2011) illustrated, p. 13, top right; BIB# 138760
Glass, Knocking at the Door of Art (2010) illustrated, p. 240; BIB# 115616
The Corning Museum of Glass (2009-03) illustrated, p. 11; BIB# AI98465
Corning Museum of Glass (2009-01) illustrated, p. 9; BIB# 109342
The Corning Museum of Glass (2009-01) illustrated, p. 237, Fig. 9;
Contemporary Glass Sculptures and Panels: Selections from the Corning Museum of Glass (2008) illustrated, p. 28, 202-203 (fig. 49, plate 77); BIB# 107478
The Corning Museum of Glass Annual Report 2005 (2006) illustrated, p. 15, bottom; BIB# AI90241
Recent Important Acquisitions (2006) illustrated, p. 115; BIB# AI98523
Karen LaMonte: Reflections on Glass (2005-06) illustrated, Cover; BIB# AI66055
Karen LaMonte: Vanitas (2005) illustrated, pp. 12-13, 16; BIB# 88204
Recent Acquisitions (2005) illustrated, p. 13, bottom right; BIB# AI66556