Gift of Carol Quillen, 18th President of Davidson College, and George McLendon

Appel’s use of flat fields of color to emphasize the two-dimensionality of the painted surface, as seen in "Lying in Colors", suggestively evokes the metaphysical dimensions of art as a free creative impulse. His graphic oeuvre grew out of his first experiments with etching and serigraphy in the early 1950s. This lithograph belongs to a later period, characterized by a more controlled and deliberate graphic style achieved by a process in which plates of different shapes were used to create prints that resemble cut pieces of paper arranged in the form of a collage. Lying in Colors is a wild, imaginative, colorful abstract portrait consisting of playful shades of chrome yellow, warm red, plum magenta, pink, purple, blues, green, with bold black paint strokes accentuating the abstract bodies and faces of 2 fanciful creatures (one resembles an almost serpent-like snake form with googly eyes) floating on a lively blue, lavender pink, and white background.

Van Every/Smith Galleries Blog: NEW ACQUISITION: LYING IN COLORS by Oliver Poduschnick ’25