
Eleventh Stone
<p>The imagery in <em>Eleventh Stone</em> is directly related to a group of striped and billowing colored relief sculptures Bontecou produced in 1966, made of welded steel, epoxy, fiberglass, and canvas. They resemble parts of windblown airships or the hard, curving shell of a mollusk.</p> <p>Bontecou was ultimately dissatisfied with the qualityof the printing of <em>Eleventh Stone</em>. Printing is a collaborative process between the artist and the printer, and, in the case of <em>Eleventh Stone</em>, she explained that she “wasn’t happy with the printing. I know that when I did them, they weren’t clogged looking. I just know that something happened to the [lithographic] stones. They were all right when we started. [They] should have come out with more gradations, like the flower.”</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1966
- Dimensions
- Image: 26 × 41.2 cm (10 1/4 × 16 1/4 in.); Primary support: 27 × 41.7 cm (10 11/16 × 16 7/16 in.); Secondary support: 51.8 × 67.6 cm (20 7/16 × 26 5/8 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Lee Bontecou
Artist

Sculpture
The work of abstract sculptor Lee Bontecou evades easy categorization. Although not affiliated with any artistic movement, her objects share similarities with Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism and evoke early Cubist sculpture. Her sculptures are typically defined by dark cavernous voids at their centers, and posses an industrial, seemingly mechanical aesthetic.
Full artist profile →More
More by Lee Bontecou
An Untitled Print
1981 · Lithograph from fourteen plates in blue and green ink on white wove paper
Fifteenth Stone
1980 · Lithograph from one stone in black ink on white wove paper
Sixteenth Stone
1980 · Lithograph from one stone in gray ink on tan wove paper
Study for An Untitled Print
1979 · Lithograph from two stones in black and white on gray wove paper
Study for An Untitled Print (White on Black)
1979 · Lithograph from one stone in white on black wove paper
Pirates
1979 · Lithograph from seven plates and three stones in black, gray, blue, purple, and metallic silver ink on white wove paper
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Lee Bontecou
- Year
- 1966
- Dimensions
- Image: 26 × 41.2 cm (10 1/4 × 16 1/4 in.); Primary support: 27 × 41.7 cm (10 11/16 × 16 7/16 in.); Secondary support: 51.8 × 67.6 cm (20 7/16 × 26 5/8 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1966-096068
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified





