Meret Oppenheim

Private collection, Spain

Peter Wollen, Addressing the Century: 100 Years of Art & Fashion, Hayward Gallery Publishing, London, 1998, no. 183 for another example

Mirjam Varadinis and Parkett Verlag, Parkett - 20 years of artists' collaborations, Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland, 2004, p. 65 for another example

Nicolaas Matsier, Private Passion: Artists' Jewelry of the 20th Century, Arnoldsche, Stuttgart, 2009, p. 122 for another example

'Meret Oppenheim: Gloves,' National Museum of Women in the Arts

London, Hayward Gallery, Addressing the Century: 100 Years of Art & Fashion, October 8, 1998 – January 11, 1999 for another example

New York, Museum of Modern Art, Collaborations with Parkett: 1984 to Now, April 3 – June 5, 2001 for another example

Realizing an original design from 1936—the year of the creation of her famous Fur-lined Teacup —the demurely savage chic of these gloves turns the hands of the wearer inside out.

Oppenheim, who was so successful a Surrealist even as a student that she was commissioned to create gloves and jewel designs for the house of Schiaparelli (which notably collaborated with Salvador Dalí on a variety of Surrealist objects). Oppenheim created these gloves in 1985 to be sold with a special issue of Parkett Magazine. These gloves turn expectation on its head: the very sign of aging that many women detest, varicose veins, are put proudly on display here and prove the humanity of the wearer.

Pieces from the same edition are on display at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (98.1998.1a-b) and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC.