Dorothy Dehner created her earliest sculptures in wax, a medium that emphasizes contour and rich textural effects, but in 1955 she started to cast her sculptures in bronze. Throughout the 1960s, Dehner explored a rectilinear formal language, increasing the scale of her works in the process. Her horizontal sculptures often suggest landscapes, while her vertical sculptures, like Cenotaph #4, exhibit a distinctly totemic or iconic presence. Dehner created several cenotaphs—“empty tombs” or markers honoring someone whose remains are located elsewhere—placing rows of geometric bronze shapes incised with symbols and designs inside a thin, rectangular frame. The open negative spaces of Cenotaph #4 expose the surrounding environment, while the positive spaces speak to Dehner’s enduring concern for intricately worked surfaces. Throughout her long career, Dehner remained committed to abstraction, creating sculpture until her death at the age of ninety-two.