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Fuller’s use of thread can also be understood in relation to her study of craft and applied arts traditions.įuller was born in 1914 in Pittsburgh where she enrolled, in 1936, at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Although Fuller’s association with the movement undoubtedly played a significant role in Tate’s acquisition of this work, it is now better understood in relation to her connections with a variety of key émigré painters and printmakers in post-war America, as well as a career-long commitment to the tenets of modernism and constructivism. However, as Frances Follin’s contribution to this study contends, Fuller’s work can be seen to lack the trademark impression of motion that characterised op art.

When Tate acquired String Composition 128 in 1965, another work by Fuller was then on display in The Responsive Eye exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, a landmark show that propelled the category of ‘op art’ into popular consciousness. 1Īs its vaporous trajectories of blue, green and orange overlap and blend, a jewel-like intensity of colour is achieved that belies the slight materiality of the work. As she explained in 1951, ‘where the different strings cross you get “free of charge” extra colors not really there except in the eye of the viewer’. Fuller also embraced the chromatic illusions of her technique. The gentle curves that seem to arc across each of the four corners of the work are an optical illusion produced by the densely overlapping straight lines of the threads that form parabolic sections. The design achieves a mesmerising sense of depth, especially in the centre of the composition where the density of the intersecting filaments produces a kaleidoscopic effect, despite the shallow depth of its custom box frame. The threads radiate outward towards the edges of the frame, suspended like a flawless spider’s web against a white rayon background. String Composition 128 (fig.1) weaves together multiple synthetic threads to create an intricate abstract pattern of intersecting diagonals.

Circle fine arts gallery insignia on lithographs