Mary Lovelace O'Neal

Forbidden Fruit

c. 1990

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Mary Lovelace O'Neal

Forbidden Fruit

Mary Lovelace O'Neal

Forbidden Fruit

c. 1990

Physical Qualities Mixed media on canvas, 81 × 138 in. (205.7 × 350.5 cm.)

Portfolio/Series From the "Lost in the Medina" series

Credit Line Purchase with exchange funds from the Pearlstone Family Fund and partial gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

Object Number 2020.18

Forbidden Fruit envelops us in pattern and movement, as we face a figure seated before a still life of fruit. Informed by the artist’s travels through Morocco, the painting blazes with vivid color and confidently loose handling of paint. Her imagery, structure, and color recall modern art in turn-of-the-century Paris and “the boys,” as she calls artists Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse. O’Neal reclaims the legacy of “the boys,” opening up space to situate her abstraction within these renowned styles.

The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 2020; Mnuchin Gallery; the artist

Christopher Bedford, Asma Naeem, and Katy Siegel, The Baltimore Museum of Art, "Now is the Time: Recent Acquisitions to the Contemporary Collection," May 2, 2021 to July 18, 2021.