Gallery
Connie Zehr (American, 1938– ), AS IS, 2000. Natural colored sands (with detail). 192 x 288 x 30 in. (487.68 x 731.52 x 76.2 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
Connie Zehr (American, 1938– ) and assistants constructing Zehr’s installation Fallen Sand at Mount San Antonio College, Walnut, California, 1970. Contact sheet. Photographer unknown. Connie Zehr papers, 1960–2020, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Joseph Kuri (Enga Tribe, Papua New Guinea), Untitled (Sand Painting). Sand adhered to board, 1984.
Markus Kayser (German, 1983– ), Solar-sintered Bowl, 2011. Fused sand. 3.5 x 6 in. (8.9 x 15.2 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
Unknown photographer, View of Tom Morris at the Old Course in St Andrews, c. 1897–1908. © Courtesy of HES (Edenwood Album).
Micha Ullman (Israeli, 1939- ), Sand Books, 2001. Iron and red sand. 1.57 x 15.75 x 9.84 in. (4 x 40 x 25 cm). Tel Aviv Museum of Art © Micha Ullman.
I can build you a castle from a single grain of sand.
—The Temptations, I Can’t Get Next to You, 1969
Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824–1904), Bonaparte Devant le Sphinx (Bonaparte Before the Sphinx), 1886. Oil on canvas. 24.2 x 40.1 in. (61.6 x 101.9 cm). Hearst Castle, 529–9–5092.
Sand dunes are fascinating in many ways—
the uncertainty about how far they may either
be slowly creeping along
or secretly renewing themselves on the spot;
an uncanny opposition between softness and robustness;
various ways they can make nonsense
of our normal experience of distance;
their storing of heat or cool;
their conflicting response to light as between grain and dune,
element and whole.
—Michael Baxandall, Episodes, 2010
Juan O’Gorman (Mexican, 1905–1982), The Sand Mines of Tetelpa, 1942. Tempera on composition board. 22.25 x 18 in. (56.5 x 45.7 cm).Museum of Modern Art, 751.1942. Gift of Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by scala / Art Resource, NY
he is mine own,
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar and the rocks pure gold.
—Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1598
America’s petroleum industries pour out fuel and lubricants for the United Nations. A geology expert of one of the large oil companies U.S. displays two varieties of sand from an oil drilling district, ca. 1944. Film negative. Library of Congress.
Alexander Klepnev, Sand grains of yellow building sand, 2018.
From a single grain
of sand, Leibnitz holds,
the whole universe
might be comprehended
in its entire development if
we only knew the sand grain
thoroughly.
—G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, ca. 1805
Unknown artist (British), The “Young Cottager’s” Cottage, Brading, 1851. Sand picture. 2.25 x 3.25 in. (5.72 x 8.26 cm). Victoria and Albert Museum, E.858–1939.
Benjamin Zobel (German, 1762–1830), The Hermit, Late 18th-early 19th century. Sand painting on board. 23.23 x 17.32 in. (59 x 44 cm). From the collection of Brian Pike.
There are no exclusive materials reserved for art,
though we are often told otherwise. . . .
A work of art, we know, can be
made of sand or sound, of feathers or of flowers,
as much as of marble or gold.
—Anni Albers, On Weaving, 1963
Toyohara (Yōshū) Chikanobu (Japanese, 1838–1912), Women’s Activities of the Tokugawa Era: Creating Bonkei Tray Landscapes, 1896. Woodblock print. 14.75 x 29.06 in. (37.0 x 73.8 cm). Los Angeles County Museum of Art, ac1998.235.1.1-.3.
Detroit Publishing Co., A sand man, Atlantic City, ca. 1906. Dry plate negative. Library of Congress.
“Abrasive papers and cloths for the student and home craftsman,” 1937. Manual. 3.5 × 6.125 in. (8.9 × 15.6 cm), Harvard Art Museums/ Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, arch.2007.9.83. Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College.
