Vija Celmins

A page from a book or catalogue showing acknowledgements and a table of contents. The left side lists Lenders and Partners, including various art museums and foundations. The right side is a table of contents, listing chapter titles such as Foreword and Acknowledgments and Plates, along with authors and page numbers.

A black and white photograph of a cluttered artist's studio. An easel with a painting stands in the center, surrounded by wooden crates, paint supplies, and papers strewn across the floor. In the background, there is a wingback chair, tables covered in objects, and artwork hanging on the walls.

A two-page spread from an art book. The left page has a heading, Plates, and a paragraph of text. The right page features a realistic painting of two white, gooseneck desk lamps on a shared base, sitting on a surface against a muted grey background.

A diptych showing two artworks. On the left is a realistic, black-and-white painting of the August 20, 1965, TIME magazine cover about The Los Angeles Riot. On the right is a sculpture of a two-story, smoke-stained house with its roof and upper windows depicted as being on fire with painted flames.

A two-page spread from a book, displaying two separate black and white artworks. The left page shows a photorealistic drawing of an envelope with stamps and handwritten text. The right page shows a drawing of a torn, folded photograph of a landscape with a large, mushroom-like cloud on the horizon. Both pieces are set against plain, light grey backgrounds.

A black and white artwork of a dense star field. Numerous white dots of varying sizes are scattered across a dark, textured, rectangular background, evoking the vastness of the night sky. The artwork is presented on a white ground.

An eye-level studio photograph of various natural stones and sculpted objects arranged on a white surface. The collection includes smooth, speckled river rocks, angular fragments, and two prominent spherical objects with a brown base and a speckled grey top.

A two-page book spread. On the left, a small black-and-white photo shows two textured, abstract paintings on an easel. On the right is a large, full-color image of one of the paintings, a vertical abstract piece with a mottled, cracked surface in shades of deep blue and off-white.

A two-page spread from a book titled Chronology, showing a timeline from 1938 to 1964. A central vertical line with dates separates two columns. The left column outlines biographical events in the life of artist Vija Celmins, and the right column lists corresponding historical events, such as World War II, key moments in the Civil Rights movement, and cultural milestones.

A highly detailed, realistic charcoal drawing of an intricate spiderweb. The web's luminous white threads stand out against a dark, grainy background, radiating from a bright central point and stretching diagonally across the frame.

A black and white photograph of a woman with shoulder-length hair standing in a cluttered artist's studio. She wears a striped top and dark pants. The large, brightly lit room is filled with canvases, shelves of supplies, an easel, a wooden table, and a moped in the background.

A highly detailed, photorealistic drawing in black and white of the surface of a body of water. The entire frame is filled with small, choppy, overlapping waves, creating a complex and textured pattern of light and shadow. The perspective is from above, looking down on the restless water.

A dense, overlapping collage of aged, mostly black-and-white paper clippings. The fragments include images of war and technology, such as a bombed-out building, an old airplane, and a radio telescope. These are mixed with natural and celestial elements like the ocean, a starry night sky, and the moon, as well as a hand holding a revolver and snippets of printed text.

A photorealistic oil painting in black and white depicting a twin-engine American bomber from World War II in mid-flight. The plane flies from right to left against a dark, textured background, with a US star insignia on its side and a piece of debris trailing from the tail.

Vija Celmins

€ 58.00

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Edited by: Theodora Vischer, James Lingwood

June 2025, 208 Pages, 114 Photos

Hardcover

240mm x 290mm

ISBN: 978-3-7757-6031-7

HATJE CANTZ VERLAG
Mommsenstr. 27
10629 Berlin
Germany
E-Mail: contact@hatjecantz.de

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Images full of magic and stillness

Vija Celmins is a master of subtle visual power. She is best known for her captivating paintings and drawings depicting galaxies, lunar surfaces, desert floors, oceans, and spider webs. Her works are not monumental; they are painted with a restrained palette and defy quick vision. But once you get involved with them, your gaze gets caught and they unfold their fascination and great beauty. This catalogue presents all 90 works exhibited at the Fondation Beyeler. Several commentaries by the artist on her works are inserted between the image pages, most of them published for the first time. Contributions by renowned authors and artists including Julian Bell, Teju Cole, Rachel Cusk, Marlene Dumas, and Glenn Ligon open up new perspectives on the artist's impressive oeuvre.

Vija Celmins (*1938, Riga) emigrated to the United States with her family in the late 1940s. She studied fine arts at the John Herron School of Art in Indiana and attended a summer course at Yale University in 1961 before earning a master's degree at UCLA. She has had solo exhibitions in numerous museums, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Menil Collection in Houston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 1996, she was introduced to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1997, she received the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, and in 2023 the Praemium Imperiale.

Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel
June 15-September 21, 2025