Women in Cars could offer something the magazines couldn’t – colour – and when the pieces began appearing in galleries and museums, they were the epitome of cool modernity, giving the public a chance to see celebrity in a new light. One of the earliest versions of the series, ‘Laughing Woman in Car and Close Up’ was purchased by and exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) New York, hanging between works by Picasso and Odilon Redon.
“When I left his office (Felix Landau), I looked at the artworks I had brought with me. Four canvases. Three of them showed my “Women in Cars”. One of these three paintings would soon be on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, next to works of Edward Hopper, Pablo Picassso and Robert Rauschenberg. But I could not have known that at the time. I had just arrived…” James Francis Gill
James Francis Gill, in front of his Marilyn Triptych. Since 1962 in the Museum of Modern Art, New York
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