Dreams in Dust: The Pastels of Lucas Samaras at the Morgan Library and Museum

Better known for his pin-covered boxes and haunting photographs, American artist Lucas Samaras (b. 1936 in Greece) also turned to the medium of pastel to engage on a smaller scale many of the themes he explored in his sculptures, installations, and paintings. This exhibition celebrates the gift of forty-eight pastel drawings to the Morgan’s collection from the artist and his dealer Arne Glimcher. Featuring dreamlike imagery, mystical interiors, self-portraits, nudes, and still lifes set before elaborate patterns, they are an expression of the artist’s moods and mental states throughout the first three decades of his career, from 1957 to 1983. Executed in a medium unusual in postwar American art, the pastels reveal a lesser-known aspect of this highly original artist.