
<p>To create this work’s distinctive texture, Lee Mullican used a blunt straight-edge printer’s knife to build up highlights. Forming a line of paint on the edge of the blade, he then pressed it onto the canvas. The resulting surface produces a shimmering visual effect as figural elements come in and out of focus. These forms express Mullican’s belief in the interconnectedness of inner and cosmic dimensions, a concept drawn from Chickasaw spiritual influences that the artist encountered growing up in Oklahoma. As Mullican later described, “I thought space, both the inner space of the psyche and the cosmos, were the ultimate dimensions for art, and you could say they are both the same. Many ancient peoples knew that. Modern art just needed to catch up.”</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1949
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 127 × 101.6 cm (50 × 40 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Lee Mullican
Artist

Painting
Lee Mullican was an American painter and muralist working in abstraction and surrealist-inflected figuration from the 1940s onward. His practice engaged with automatic drawing, biomorphic forms, and gestural mark-making, positioning his work within postwar abstract currents while maintaining a lyrical, often dreamlike sensibility. Mullican's approach bridged European surrealism and American gestural abstraction, with particular attention to the relationship between accident and intention in the painting process.
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More by Lee Mullican
The Mountain
1969 · Lithograph
The Wave
1969 · Lithograph
Untitled from Fables
1965 · One from a portfolio of twelve lithographs
Untitled from Hungry Ghosts
1965 · One from a portfolio of twelve lithographs (including title page and colophon)
Untitled from Fables
1965 · One from a portfolio of twelve lithographs
Jam Passage
1965 · Lithograph
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Lee Mullican
- Year
- 1949
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 127 × 101.6 cm (50 × 40 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1949-114908
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified





