Chryssa (Vardea) (Greek, 1933-2013) Les portes de Times Square, New York (signed and dated (on label on the right side)neon sculpture with timer in plexiglass boxred, yellow, green and blue)

Chryssa (Vardea) (Greek, 1933-2013)
Les portes de Times Square, New York signé et daté 'Chryssa/1965' (sur l'étiquette en bas à droite)néons, plexiglas114.3 x 94 x 71.2cm (45 x 37 x 28 1/16in).signed and dated (on label on the right side)neon sculpture with timer in plexiglass boxred, yellow, green and blue

ExpositionAthens, Stavros Mihalarias Art, Chryssa '60-'90, May-July, 1990, no. 30 (catalogued and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue).When Greek-born Chryssa first arrived in New York in 1954, she was immediately struck by the visual dynamics of this great urban environment. Times Square, a legendary NY landmark with fascinating signs, calligraphic letters, and flashing lights, seemed to her utterly beautiful and poetic, summoning recollections of her Greek heritage: "In Times Square, the sky is like the gold of Byzantine mosaics or icons."1 Responding to these age-old presences in contemporary American commercial symbols and guided by a European sense of style, Chryssa, the first artist working in America to use emitted electric light, produced neon sculptures with majestic forms and oscillating letter-like patterns. Here, tightly grouped in a repetitive sequence and encased in a smoky-grey Plexiglas container, the curved red, yellow, green and blue neon tubes heighten the abstract qualities of the calligraphic elements, capturing the romantic imagery and inherent poetry of the modern metropolis. 1 Chryssa: Urban Icons, exhibition catalogue, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 1982, p. 4.