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Neuberger Museum of Art

backstory: The people behind the plaster

Several years ago, two visitors arrived at the Museum late on a Friday to see an exhibition we had on view of the work of Marisol.  As they entered the museum, they saw near the front door a sculpture by the artist George Segal, a lifesize featuring a man and a woman made of plaster in front of a barnwood wall.  They took one look at the work, walked over to the front desk, and said to the security guard, “that’s us.”

The guard, Sanjeev Avasthi, looked at them, looked at the sculpture, did a double take, and called down to our Registrar Patricia Magnani, who came up to greet them.  She took one look at them, one look at the work, and ran back down to her office to grab a Polaroid camera.  

Artists Julie Martin and Billy Kluver, who were married to each other and who each had been critical to the development of some of the most important avant garde artistic practices of their day, were very good friends of Segal’s.  In the 1979 documentary entitled George Segal: American Still Life, you can see the artist posing Martin and Kluver for the piece, turning Kluver’s body just slightly and then, as Kluver stood by, covering Martin in plaster.  Her torso first. Then her whole head. Then showing Martin (still covered in wet and dry plaster) the pieces of her body that would become the woman in Appalachian Farm Couple 1936.  The work is the plaster version of one of the four rooms Segal produced for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial in Washington DC. 

The Neuberger is proud to be able to display Appalachian Farm Couple 1936 in its permanent collection galleries.

Tracy Fitzpatrick
Director, Neuberger Museum of Art