Beatrice Wood USA, 1893-1998
I have lost him, 1974
Signed, dated, and inscribed on recto
Coloured pencil and pencil on paper
Beatrice Wood approached drawing as a form of diary and memory recollection. In the present drawing on paper, a woman with a dark mask over the eyes forms a picture...
Beatrice Wood approached drawing as a form of diary and memory recollection. In the present drawing on paper, a woman with a dark mask over the eyes forms a picture of the internal pain of heartbreak. Created in 1974, she is perhaps referring to the man she loved on her visits to India in 1961, 1965 and 1972. She never gives his name.
Such images are memories of the moment rather than stores of the feeling. The artist made a point to not hold onto sadness or grudges. In this passage she describes the challenge of overcoming heartbreak in her earlier relationship with Reginald Pole:
"Tuesday the telegram came. He was marrying that afternoon and two-thirty. I was was having my meeting with Arundale at two. I went to bed that night filled with sorrow so overwhelming I thought I was disintegrating. But as the night wore on, I saw that there was a choice in my life. Either I could cling forever to my despair, living in twilight, or I could leap into the very center of the flame, completely face my grief, and transcend it. I chose the fire.
Even stronger than my love for Reginald was my desire to make a tie with Dr. Besant. I could not go on being someone else's shadow. I got down on my knees and surrendered myself to an ectacy of renunciation.
The next morning, it was as if my aura, once violent and turbulent, had become peaceful. I was not the same person. Only memory without feeling was left of the past." - I Shock Myself, pp.107-108
Such images are memories of the moment rather than stores of the feeling. The artist made a point to not hold onto sadness or grudges. In this passage she describes the challenge of overcoming heartbreak in her earlier relationship with Reginald Pole:
"Tuesday the telegram came. He was marrying that afternoon and two-thirty. I was was having my meeting with Arundale at two. I went to bed that night filled with sorrow so overwhelming I thought I was disintegrating. But as the night wore on, I saw that there was a choice in my life. Either I could cling forever to my despair, living in twilight, or I could leap into the very center of the flame, completely face my grief, and transcend it. I chose the fire.
Even stronger than my love for Reginald was my desire to make a tie with Dr. Besant. I could not go on being someone else's shadow. I got down on my knees and surrendered myself to an ectacy of renunciation.
The next morning, it was as if my aura, once violent and turbulent, had become peaceful. I was not the same person. Only memory without feeling was left of the past." - I Shock Myself, pp.107-108