A distinctive voice in American art, New Orleans native Ida Kohlmeyer experienced a “great awakening” after studying with Hans Hofmann and Mark Rothko. Yet, as a fervent individualist, she sought to disassociate from such apparent influences, a spell broken only when she began to incorporate the circle as a generative and narrative form. With this painting, like others of the period, Kohlmeyer introduces the pictographic vocabulary of crosses, clouds, grids, and vessels that would become her signature style in the 1970s. Painted during a transitional period in Kohlmeyer’s career, Fantasy No. 2 marks the moment when she left her position as a painting instructor at Newcomb College in 1964 and built a studio in her suburban Louisiana backyard.
