Le Couple (The Couple)

1973

Meret Oppenheim

Artist, Swiss, born Germany, 1913 - 1985

The toes of two leather lace-up boots face each other and, on closer inspection, are conjoined in this horizontal black and white photograph. The half-laced, ribbon-like laces of both boots are undone and splay out toward us almost symmetrically. The shaft of the left boot curls open, and the tongue lies close to its laces. The shaft of the right boot angles away from us. Both boots are decorated with patterned bands of punched holes over the toes, up the sides of the laces, and back along the upper, and both have square, stacked heels. The artist wrote “9/45” in the lower left corner and signed the lower right, “Meret Oppenheim,” both in graphite.
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Artwork overview


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Eileen and Michael Cohen, New York; gift to NGA, 2011.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2014

  • Meret Oppenheim: Tender Friendships, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, 2014, unnumbered catalogue.

Bibliography

1982

  • Curiger, Bice. Meret Oppenheim, Spuren durchstandener Freiheit. Zurich: ABC Verlag, 1982.

2014

  • Meret Oppenheim: Tender Friendships. Exh. cat., National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington. Washington, DC, 2014.

Inscriptions

signed by artist, lower right in graphite: Meret Oppenheim; lower left in graphite: 9/45

Wikidata ID

Q64157883


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