Ida Applebroog Online Insight: Mercy Hospital

Born in 1929, Ida Applebroog is a pioneering feminist who addresses themes such as gender politics, sexual identity, violence, power and domestic space in her multimedia artworks. She has spent the past five decades conducting a sustained inquiry into the polemics of human relations. She has an instantly recognisable style of simplified human forms with bold outlines.

The artworks on display at the Freud Museum feature bold line drawings of human, animal and abstract figures with bursts of vibrant colours. They combine black Indian ink, pencil, watercolour and pastel. Many are annotated with questions and statements that load the works with additional readings, hinting at the artist’s fragile state of mind. The Museum’s unique space and history offers an intimate setting to appreciate and contemplate these small-scale works and the context in which they were created. These artworks can also be seen on the website using the link provided.

Ida Applebroog’s Mercy Hospital drawings have been accompanied by famous literary texts selected by the artist. They include Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, a short story describing a woman’s experience of a nervous breakdown; Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, highlighting Gregor Samsa’s experience of waking up as something other than himself; and Sigmund Freud’s clinical case studies, namely Little Hans and Dora.

Ida Applebroog: Mercy Hospital is organised by Barry Rosen in association with Hauser and Wirth