Woman Looking Out to Sea

Date: 1965

Medium: Stuffed cloth on metal chair frame

Dimensions: 43 x 26 x 31 inches

Edition: 1

Related Information

Collection:
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; Gift of Christopher and Nicholas Harris

Exhibitions:
Lanyon Gallery, Palo Alto, CA, Paul Harris, April 27–May 22, 1965
Poindexter Gallery, New York, NY, Paul Harris, December 20, 1966–January 14, 1967
Galerie M.E. Thelen, Essen, Germany, Paul Harris, 1970
Loch Haven Art Center, Orlando, FL, Paul Harris Sculpture, Certain Pieces, 1958–1980, October 4–November 15, 1981
Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT, Fabric Sculptural Works: Paul Harris, September 1–October 28, 2001

Remarks:
“Paul Harris’ ‘Woman Looking to Sea’ is a rather strikingly conceived picture…on a real live contour chair is sewn…an abstracted woman curled up with recognizable hair and head peering over the back of the chair…”
—Dan Scarlett, “Sculptors, Not Sculpture?” Pacific Sun, January 21, 1966

“This uncanny edge between lifelike and abstract is further teased in works like Woman Looking Out to Sea (1965), in which a female figure lies almost prostrate, her legs swept beneath her and hidden under a floral skirt, on another striped chair, this one rounded with layers of orange and blue. The depicted woman rests her chin on a hand along the top edge of the chair, while her other stretches out behind her and onto the azure blossoms of her skirt. The woman's dark crimson hair appears windblown, pieced together with white seams, and our gaze naturally follows hers away from the sculpture and into its surroundings, as it does with Woman in Blue Slacks. Like the earlier work, the face in Woman Looking Out to Sea is but an absence, left for the viewer to project their own interpretations of what that countenance might be, thereby drawing on their own memories or experiences of similar scenes. Harris evoked gestures, patterns, and body language that, while extracted from his domestic and everyday life in Bolinas, nevertheless articulated something of an emotional universality.”
—Leah Triplett, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, “Interior Interests,” 2026