Ida Applebroog: MONALISA

In 1969, Bronx-born Ida Applebroog was living in southern California with her husband and four children. Busy as a mother and an artist, she took refuge from the pressures of the home in the bathtub, where she also brought her sketchpads. Over the course of several weeks, she drew her own naked body, creating over 160 vagina drawings in India ink and pencil that range from the highly detailed and fancifully exaggerated to abstractions comprising a single curved line. Packed in a basement and forgotten until studio assistants discovered them in 2009, this remarkable archive was presented at Hauser & Wirth in New York alongside a room-sized wooden structure as part of a new body of work called ‘MONALISA’. Featuring an extensive illustrated essay by critic and art historian Julia Bryan-Wilson and a photographic study of the Monalisa house by Abby Robinson, this catalogue offers new insight into Applebroog’s work through full-color reproductions of the never-before-seen drawings and installation views, providing a powerful chronicle of an intimate act of self-exploration by a woman and an artist.