Hanging Puddles
1992
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
graphite, ink, and correction fluid on wove paper
Dimensions
sheet: 56.2 × 37.94 cm (22 1/8 × 14 15/16 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Debbie Taylor in honor of Judith Brodie
Accession Number
2018.112.4
Art Historical Context
**Hanging Puddles**1992) is a captivating drawing by American artist Al Taylor (194–1999), renowned for his witty, perceptual explorations of everyday. Created on wove paper using graphite, ink, and correction fluid, this measures 56.2 × 37.94 cm and exemplifies Taylor's late-20th-century practice of transforming mundane phenomena—like shadows, drips, or reflections—into intricate visual puzzles. The title evokes suspended water, playfully challenging our sense of gravity and space through abstract, illusionistic rendering. Taylor's technique shines in his inventive use of materials: fine gra...
About the Artist
Al Taylor
Al Taylor (1948–1999) was born in Springfield, Missouri, and received his B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1970, where he trained as a painter. That year, he relocated to New York City, embracing the vibrant art scene and taking a job as an assistant to Robert Rauschenberg, whose medium-blending experiments shaped Taylor's lifelong curiosity about the interplay between two and three di...