Catawba, Azalea

Anne Truitt, Catawba, 1962, acrylic paint on wood, collection: MoMA

Anne Truitt’s 1962 sculpture Catawba got its name from a street in North Carolina where she had appendicitis as a child. For Truitt color and form was connected to experience, to the evocation of a memory or a place.

For me, this absolute unit of an azalea bush I passed on a road I don’t take very often reminded me of Catawba.