ALL: Master Collection List
Nationality
American
Preview
Date of Work
2016
Medium
Digital print
Signature
Bottom right
Height
36"
Width
72"
Collection/Provenance
The Chester Fritz Library Collection
Status
Pulled for Exhibition
Location
Chester Fritz Library
Artist Bio
Nancy Clearwater Herman is an American artist based in the Philadelphia area, known for translating music into color. After initially studying architecture, she completed a degree in art at the University of Pennsylvania, studying under Neil Welliver and Rackstraw Downes. A course based on Josef Albers' Interaction of Color proved formative: Herman came to see the juxtaposition of colors as analogous to the way sequences of musical notes create meaning, and she has since devoted much of her practice to "visual music" which is a note-for-note translations of compositions in which each note is assigned a tuned color that fills the space dictated by the music, including animated works and pieces based on Mozart. She has worked across painting, fiber art (one of her fabric works is held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art), and digital animation, and is the author of the book If C Is Red. In 2022 she opened the Nancy Herman Studio Gallery in Narberth, Pennsylvania.
Additional Information
Mozart First Minuet is a "visual music" work in which Herman translates a Mozart minuet. This piece of music is likely Mozart's earliest composition, the Minuet in G (K. 1) — into color. Following the method she developed and documents in her book If C Is Red, each musical note is assigned a specific tuned color, and each color fills an amount of space corresponding to that note's duration in the score. The result is a direct, note-for-note visual transcription of the music, part of her broader project of translating musical sequences into sequences of color.
Condition
Very good
Condition Notes
Needed to be flattened after shipment
Rights
Images are provided for educational purposes only and may not be reproduced for commercial use. Images may be protected by artist copyright. A credit line is required to be used for any public non-commercial educational purpose. The credit line must include, “Image courtesy of the University of North Dakota.”