Selina Trieff’s (1934–2015, American) career was defined by a prolific output of paintings that center on an archetypal figure. Trieff worked in a singular style of figuration to create portraits that are at once autobiographical and allegorical. Her depicted figures provoke a powerful sense of mystery and myth through the artist’s purposeful nonspecificity of their gender, as well as of time and place. The acrobat’s confrontational yet introspective character in Acrobat (1979) attests to Trieff’s spiritual and iconic treatment of her subjects that has been attributed to a wide range of influences including the Rococo painter Jean-Antoine Watteau, Diego Velázquez, and the abstract artist Mark Rothko.
–Affinities and Outliers: Highlights from the University at Albany Fine Art Collections