Sylvia Lefkovitz - Women

The iconography of this graphic work certainly has allegorical meanings and can be defined, in some ways, as symbolist precisely because of its allusion to underlying meanings. It is a type of subject that can be traced back to the artistic language of late nineteenth-century painters such as Moreau and Odilon Redon, who, in addition to complex iconography, also sought a certain formal abstraction. These subjects are typical of the work of artist Sylvia Lefkovitz, who often, in addition to formal complexity, also seeks a symbolic complexity of the image, always informed by the essentially existential nature of her art.

The graphic work is exemplary of Sylvia Lefkovitz's printmaking, which is characterized by scenes in which sparse groups of wayfarers are lost in desolate lands that are almost metaphysical spaces. This type of representation is the image of a relentless quest, that of man and the questions surrounding his existence. Formally, the sense of enigma and mystery is heightened by the abstraction of the subjects into elongated forms. In this particular work, moreover, the symbolic-metaphysical suggestion is further fueled by the contrast between the group in the foreground, almost sculptural but rendered with a quivering existentialism, and the long procession of shadows in the background led by a mysterious figure on horseback.

Sylvia Lefkovitz (August 29, 1924 – April 21, 1987) was a Canadian artist known for her murals, oils, drawings, lithographs, and sculptures in bronze, silver, marble, and Canadian wood. Among her most notable works are the bronze choir, commissioned for Mies Van der Rohe's complex in Montreal's Westmount Square; the Fathers of Confederation, created for Canada's centennial in 1967; the eighty-figure Divine Comedy, purchased by the Canadian government and exhibited in the Sala Dante of the Palazzo Reale in Milan on the occasion of Dante's seventieth birthday; and the eight bronze bas-relief biblical panels, inspired by Ghiberti's bronze doors on the Baptistery in Florence.

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