Art Peritus Selects

Simmons, Laurie (American, b. 1949)

Sperone Westwater Gallery label on verso inscribed: Laurie Simmons / Coral Living Room, 1983 / Cibachrome: edition of 5 with 2 APs / Edition 1/2 AP / SW07033.AP1

Celebrated American artist, photographer and filmmaker, Laurie Simmons has created staged scenes since the 1970s that focus on women’s gender roles in society. Originally from Far Rockaway, New York, Simmons attended the Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia where she earned her BFA in 1971. In 1972, Simmons discovered a vintage doll house in an attic, and was drawn to the “gendered appeal of dolls and dollhouses,“ a subject she drew inspiration from throughout her career.

Simmons uses props such as dolls, ventriloquist dummies, objects and people to create domestic scenes that she captures in various poses and with her camera. Her early photography consisted primarily of black and white images of doll houses and later, her “Black Series” depicted sparse rooms with easily recognizable artworks. In the early 1980s, Simmons created what she coined her “Color-Coordinated Interiors,” images that include the present artwork. Here Simmons used monochrome Japanese dolls called Teenettes, posed inside decorated room of the same colors.

Throughout her career, Simmons’ has focused on a variety of series, including cowboys figurines, Teenette dolls traveling abroad, water ballet theme consisting of dolls in fish tanks, and various objects supported by human legs. She has exhibited her work extensively throughout the world, and her artwork is housed in important permanent collections, including Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC; the Hara Museum, Tokyo; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Solomon R Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among many others.