A rush of plum commissions and solo shows were soon to follow, establishing Steir as one of the foremost contemporary artists of our time. As the New York Times noted early last year, in 2018 she “joined the small group of female artists commanding seven figures at auction” when Elective Affinity Waterfall (1992) was sold at Phillips for $2,295,000.
The film, it should be said, shows little interest in biographical plot points, much less chronology. Functioning—very ably—as her own interpreter, Steir lets the pigments of her life all run together, prioritizing her creative process and the people who informed it. She points to figures like John Cage, whose embrace of chance methods was a major influence; her dear friend Agnes Martin, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and Anne Waldman; Sol LeWitt, with whom Steir was nearly killed on the autobahn; and the psychoanalyst Phyllis Greenacre, who gave her the courage to be brave in her art. (As Steir puts it, “I was trying to get into the house of myself, and she let me in—she opened the door.”) The difficulties of her childhood, marked by a strained relationship with her over-competitive father and distant, depressive mother form another through line, as does her long association with second-wave feminism.
The proof of her struggle—and ultimate triumph—isn’t only in the story she tells (which includes cofounding Heresies, an important feminist art collective, in the mid-1970s), but also in the visual of Steir, now slightly stooped with age, at work in her studio. She’s joined there by a small cabal of strapping young men who assemble her canvases, receive her discarded paint cans, and operate the lift that helps her reach the top of her paintings. (Once upon a time, she used a ladder.) In that space, she is indubitably the master of her domain.
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Artist Pat Steir Speaks for Herself - Vogue
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