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Music Drawing

music_drawing_tate-id1279-72

charcoal on paper mounted on board 
55.9 × 76.2 cm
1963

Notes on this work

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Tom Phillips told the compiler (7 May 1975) that this drawing was the first of a series of about 10 large drawings in which the artist tried to record in the most loose and generalised way, his view of listening to a piece of music. Reading the drawing from left to right is the ‘equivalent’ of the passing of time. 

T01933 was not ‘about’ a particular piece of music, though some of the other drawings in the series were, in addition to being much tighter. 

This drawing was made ‘more by erasing than by positively applying charcoal’. In his exhibition at the A.I.A. Gallery, Lisle Street, London, in November 1966, Phillips included a music drawing (No.9 in the catalogue) which was not T01933.

Published in The Tate Gallery 1974-6: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1978