Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid

Artist Cecily Brown’s name is, for many people, synonymous with showstoppers. Over the years, she’s painted quite a few of them. They tend to be big, bold, and boisterous. When her two colorful murals covered with bravura brushstrokes were displayed recently at the Metropolitan Opera House—the red one is now installed in the lobby of the Brooklyn Art Museum—New Yorkers took lots of selfies in front of them. Earlier, in 2017, her solo show at Paula Cooper’s Chelsea gallery featured enormous canvases depicting storm-tossed boats and other marine subjects.

Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid, an atypical mid-career survey, on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through December 3, 2023, comprises twenty-one paintings, eighteen works on paper, five sketchbooks, and three monotypes made between 1997 and 2022 that treat just two themes: death and a maiden. Entering from either end of the first floor’s Kimmelman Gallery, you thoroughly experience one subject before encountering the other. One direction addresses vanity and vanitas; the other celebrates still-lifes. Moreover, the long, narrow display hall somewhat duplicates Brown’s own studio near Union Square.

You’re not meant to stop in your tracks so much as to constantly walk close to or away from layered surfaces where shapes and hues jostle among themselves. Like Brown’s atelier, the walls and display cases are lined with works in a variety of sizes and colors. You’ll find linen canvases that are big and small; square, rectangular, and triptych-formatted; lots of red, blue, and white as well as violet, lemon, and pistachio.

This exhibition is an adventure in looking. What will you notice first: the abstract components or the representational elements? Even the artist mentioned at the press preview that there were details in her paintings that she herself didn’t recall making. Where you stand matters. You can take in the whole picture or spot details. From the information gleaned from the wall labels, you should be able to discern some “hidden” items.

Brown often depicts enchanting sylvan settings or opulent, well-appointed interiors. You’ll find flora and fauna in abundance. Mirrors are a recurring leitmotif. There is an abundance of chairs and tables, including yards of bunched up tablecloths. Heads pop up a lot. A bare-assed woman makes an appearance. They all are rendered in luscious, somewhat smallish yet power packed oil brushstrokes. For some, they are reminiscent of Willem de Kooning’s long, slinky strokes, but the New York-based artist has reduced them in size and made them uniquely her own.

In addition, Brown will appropriate big chunks from Old Masters, illustrators, and others. She knows her art history. In Carnival and Lent (2006–8), she’s recreated an allegory from Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559). Despite a work commemorating religious feasts and fasting, ribald characters are present. Another eating scene tips its hat to Frans Snyders by creating a table bulging with foodstuffs that Brown painted as the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for large families to buy groceries. You’ll find storm-tossed boats that call to mind Théodore Géricault as well as Eugène Delacroix, not to mention Africans fleeing their homelands. Édouard Manet and Jean-Honoré Fragonard appear in works on paper. There’s even a frightening appearance by Edvard Munch. Taken all together, these might seem like eclectic sources. Don’t be deceived. They all have something to say about present-day life.

Brown delves into all sorts of wide-ranging, hot topic issues. You’ll find references to love, death, social mores, religion, the way we appear to the world at large. She seems to have it all. Her beautifully painted panels are both abstract and representational, often refer to Old Masters, and are packed with substance.