
COURTESY STEVEN ZEVITAS GALLERY
T
COURTESY STEVEN ZEVITAS GALLERY
The bedroom occupied by Toebbe and her sister as girls is revived in gouache, paper, and pencil in Caroline and Ann’s Room (2013), a composition in blue dominated by contrasting patterns of carpet, curtains, and sheets. Two versions of Six Sisters (both 2014) reproduce the childhood room of two aunts, now elderly, according to their descriptions of it. Both images feature a pair of spindle beds with striped covers, lace curtains, a bureau, a nightstand, and a lamp. But while one of the aunts remembered a rose color scheme and a braided rug on a wooden floor, her sister recollected yellow linens and blue floral carpeting. Toebbe has faithfully replicated each woman’s vision, down to different views out of the bedroom’s three windows, framed with snippets of real lace. Through Toebbe’s art, the once-shared space here became shared again instead of being forgotten.
A version of this story originally appeared in the September 2014 issue of ARTnews on page 108.