Drawing
Ascending Spirit
- Description
- Black-and-white pastel drawing on paper titled Ascending Spirit by Donna Levinstone. The drawing depicts the outline of buildings with gray-and-white smoke rising from Ground Zero.
- Historical Notes
- The tragic beauty of the smoke and dust clouds in the midst of 9/11 took on spiritual overtones for artist Donna Levinstone, and she focused on that aspect in the series of pastels she created in late 2001 and 2002. This piece, Ascending Spirit, depicts the dark outlines of tall buildings with the contrasting light, which seems to lift the gray-and-white smoke ascending from the darkness.
Curator's Comment
Grief and shock prevented Donna Levinstone from creating any new art for months after 9/11. She would visit her studio on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where she had been when she first learned about the attacks, and simply sit. Her creative paralysis lifted at the end of 2001 when Levinstone was invited to participate in an exhibition of artwork mounted in response to the attacks. Departing from her usual practice of drawing serene landscapes inspired by nature, Levinstone began studying photographs of the plumes of dust emanating from the collapsed Twin Towers. She found a spiritual beauty in the dust clouds, seeing in them the souls of those who had been killed. Over the next few months, Levinstone created a series of pastels, many of them in shades of black, white, and gray.
- Accession Number: C.2014.478.1
- Dimensions: 17.25 in X 14.5 in
- Dimensions (Metric): 43.815 cm X 36.83 cm
- Source: Donna Levinstone
- Credit Line: Gift of Donna Levinstone in memory of all those who perished
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