20th Century American Women Artists

Dickinson College
Dickinson Scholar
Student Scholarship & Creative Works By Year
Student Scholarship & Creative Works
1-22-1999
20th Century American Women Artists: Selections
from the Permanent Collection at Dickinson
College
Anne C. Cabell
Dickinson College
Adrienne M. Dietch
Dickinson College
Lale Sylvia Ismen
Dickinson College
Kerry Joyce
Dickinson College
Kara R. Kuchemba
Dickinson College
See next page for additional authors
Follow this and additional works at: http://scholar.dickinson.edu/student_work
Part of the American Art and Architecture Commons, and the Fine Arts Commons
Recommended Citation
Hirsh, Sharon, et al. 20th Century American Women Artists: Selections from the Permanent Collection at Dickinson College. Carlisle, Pa.:
The Trout Gallery, Dickinson College, 1999.
This Exhibition Catalog is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship & Creative Works at Dickinson Scholar. It has been
accepted for inclusion in Student Scholarship & Creative Works By Year by an authorized administrator of Dickinson Scholar. For more information,
please contact [email protected], [email protected].
Authors
Anne C. Cabell, Adrienne M. Dietch, Lale Sylvia Ismen, Kerry Joyce, Kara R. Kuchemba, Krista Ann Mancini,
Mattie E. McLaughlin, Patrick E. Smith, Tobey E. Sparrow, Heather L. Troutman, and Sharon L. Hirsh
This exhibition catalog is available at Dickinson Scholar: http://scholar.dickinson.edu/student_work/19
20THCENTURY
AMERICAN
WOMEN
ARTISTS
SELECTIONS FROM THE
PERMANENT COLLECTION AT
DICl<INSON COLLEGE
CURATED
BY:
ANN E C. CAB E LL
ADRIENNE M. DEITCH
LALE SYLVIA ISMEN
KERRY JOYCE
KARA R. KUCH EMBA
KRISTA ANN MANCINI
MATTIE E. MCLAUGHLIN
PATRICK E. SMITH
TOBEY C. SPARROW
HEATHER L. TROUTMAN
22 JANUARY - 20 FEBRUARY 1999
THE TROUT GALLERY
EMIL R. WEISS CENTER FOR THE ARTS
DICl<INSON COLLEGE
Acknowledgements
This exhibition and catalogue are the work of the members of the Art Historical Methods Seminar, a course designed as a survey of art
history and theory and as an introduction to curatorial experience. The seminar members have selected, identified, documented, researched,
and catalogued the works exhibited here. They also helped to plan the general appearance ef this catalogue as well as designed and assisted
in the exhibition installation. In the process ef all this, ending in a flurry of editorial activity in mid-December and a last crescendo of
reception planning, painting, hanging, lighting and labelling in January, we have been helped in every step along the way, and would here
like to express our gratitude.
Our thanks go first to the staff of the Waidner-Spahr Library, who helped us find our way through the wondeiful spaces of the new
facility. Knowing that final manuscripts would be due right after Thanksgiving added to our sense of irony when we discovered that the art
books would be the last section of shelving to be moved to the new quarters. It is perhaps for this reason that this particular group of curators has a higher than average sense of adventure, not to say level of panic, when it comes to research. Our success would not have been
possible without the help in particular ef our liaison Izabella Tomljanovich, who is as gifted a navigator through the new library space as
she is in virtual spaces, as well as the interlibrary loan librarians, Tina Maresco and Sandra Garity. For those artists about whom very little was published, we are grateful to the many museum projessionals who were willing to track down difficult exhibition histories or even
biographies for us. These include Charlotta Kotik of the Brooklyn Museum, Aurora Deshauteurs and Cheryl Leibold at the Pennsylvania
Academy ef the Fine Arts, and Patty Jaconetta at the Carnegie Museum of Art.
We also thank Eric Denker, who made his catalogue essay on Grace Albee, still in press, available to us in manuscript form; also Tyler
Graphics Incorporated sent us documentation about the Frankenthaler print. In addition, some students were able to reach directly the
artists or a member ef their family; these people were extremely helpful, and include Mary Barringer, Phyllis Cohen and Leslie Brown; to
all, we feel extremely fortunate to have been afforded so much. ef their time and very useful information.
We also thank the staff of The Trout Gallery. To the registrar Dwayne Franklin and his assistants Adam Granofsky, Todd Arsenault,
and Jennifer Mickel, as well as to Sherron Biddle (assistant registrar) we offer our gratitude for the numerous gallery visits for selection and
study of objects. We also know that our whole semester went smoothly due to the help ef Stephanie Keifer, who as usual worked doubletime in her double duties as efface administrator to both the Fine Arts Department and The Trout Gallery. We gained valuable insight into
education planning for museum exhibitions from our educators Martha Metz and Wendy Pires, and we know that they will help us to
reach a much broader public through the Outreach programs, with the help ef assistants Mattie McLaughlin and Kirsten. Houghton. We
thank Martha and Wendy especially for their incredible patience as we developed throughout the semester a real knack for arriving in. the
gallery to check one more detail just as they were beginning classes or meetings there. Helping all of us in the myriad tasks of exhibition
preparation were rn.y assistant Adrienne Deitch and our Gallery intern Krista Mancini. Finally, we thank Gallery attendants Skip
Marcello and Ann Martin for their work which so often includes much more than "attending."
For this beautiful catalogue we want to thank Kirn Nichols and Dottie Reed, publications directors who led us thoughtfully through
class discussions and deliberations, and who lent us their excellent design skills in order to bring to fruition our ideas and desires. We thank
Pierce Bounds for making the photographs ef the objects for publication and, in advance, Bob Cavenagh and the Media Center staff for
creating a virtual version of this exhibition for our college web pages. In. addition, we thank my colleague in art history Melinda Schlitt for
lending her expertise in helping us with lighting for the exhibition.
Lastly, we proffer our continuing, heartfelt gratitude to the many donors who, over the last one hundred years, have provided us with
the marvelous works by twentieth-century American women artists for the permanent collection. Three great friends of the Callery, whose
donations are reflected in the current exhibition-Meyer P and Vivian Potarnkin, Paul Kanev, and Grace Linn-as well as one whose
donations are not-Eric Denker-have been responsible for the significant gifting of work by women. artists; without their generosity in.
this regard, we would not have been able to consider such an exhibition, let alone have had such a wondefull» difficult selection in order to
accomplish it. In one case, the artist herself donated the work, and we are most grateful to Toshiko Takaezu for adding so significantly to
our collection in this way. Finally, Paul Kanev offered a magnificent loan.for this exhibition, the stunning Tales of Gen.Ji V by Helen
Frankenthaler, printed in 1998, as a promised gift to the gallery, previewed for the first time here.
As adviser to the Seminar this year, I would like to end this note by congratulating the members of the class, whose enthusiasm and
projessionalism are so evident in the quality of this exhibition and catalogue. I applaud in particular their cooperation with one another,
with freely exchanged ideas, opinions, and information, and their working together on all aspects of the project. That at each step ef th.e
process, one ef the members of the seminar seemed prepared to take th.e lead, accomplish extra work, and guide us to decisions was remarkable; th.at th.e group as a whole met on their own, to continue discussions and work, offers some indication of the degree of responsibility
with which they approached this project. They have accomplished an impressive exhibition with intelligence and grace.
The members
ef the Art
Historical Methods Seminar, Sharon. L. Hirsh, adviser
©1999 The Trout Gallery, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
All rights reserved
INTRODUCTION
The twenty works exhibited here, all selections from
the Dickinson College permanent collection, represent
the engaging diversity of interests and talents of American
women artists in the twentieth century. Nowhere is the
versatility and vitality of this group of artists more clear
than in the contrast between the oldest and the most
recent work included here, which span a full ninety-nine
years. The earliest work in the show, a small, precisely
sketched rendering of roof tops, was drawn by the now
little-known Blanche Dillaye, in the blend of careful observation of nature and adherence to basic design principles
taught to her by Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts; she included the drawing in
an exhibition there in 1899. The most recent work in this
· exhibition-completed in 1998-is, by contrast, an ambitiously large and complex 48-color woodcut by the
outspoken Abstract Expressionist Helen Frankenthaler,
.JU/J!i,,,~""""'"'"""''--"""-•"'°""
Figure 1 Winslow Horner, Art Students and Copyists in the Louvre Callery, Paris. wood
Weekly (january 11, 1868). Special Collections, Dickinson College.
who developed her own sweeping gesture as the crucible
of the form and the work itself, especially when accompanied by layers of highly idiosyncratic colors. Between
the pencil lines of Dillaye and the expansive forms of
Frankenthaler exists a chasm seemingly without any possibility of connection or relation. Intriguingly, however, these
two works also bracket not only the twentieth century but
also two major feminist movements of modern times.
Dillaye began working during the advancement of the
suffragette movement of the late nineteenth century, a
movement which garnered great support in America,
especially in large cities such as her native Philadelphia.
Following her training under Thomas Eakins (who was, in
1886, dismissed from the Academy for his untraditional
inclusion of women students in all facets of studio work,
including drawing from the nude male model), Dillaye set
out for Paris, and later returned to Philadelphia to play a
major role in several of the artists' groups and exhibition
societies there. Dillaye had taken full advantage of her
unusual upbringing (for a female), first in her aunt's
advanced Ogontz School for Young Girls, and later during
her tutelage under the outrageously egalitarian Eakins; she
epitomized the "new woman" who was both the rage and
the fear of n1any at the turn of the century. Frankenthaler,
on the other hand, began her painting career in the early
1950s when "great women artists" were unheard of; yet she
was one of ni.any women who participated in the extensive
changes in painting, towards personal gesture, abstracted
forms, and new techniques of painting itself (she worked
for a long time with the canvas
spread on the floor). Frankenthaler
established a high profile reputation in Manhattan and throughout
the country long before the surge
of feminist-inspired inroads into
the art world of the 1960s. By
the 1970s, and the rise of a new
generation of young women
artists seeking new equality in
their profession, she was a singular
model. Thus both Dillaye and
Frankenthaler, so completely
different in their choice of media,
model, and mode of expression,
were artists who were women
"ahead of their time", and serve as
excellent beginning-and-end
examples. to this exhibition.
In the ninety-nine years separating the examples of works by
engraving. Harper's
women artists exhibited here, much
happened in the history of women's
rights. Anyone knowing this history,
focusing on the feminist movement of the 1970s and its
aftermath in the 1980s, might assume a very different kind
of artist-and art-to emerge in our later examples. In
some respects this is true, since a few of the most recent
examples in this exhibition-Faith Ringgold's The Surflower
Quilting Bee at Aries and Betty Saar's Self Portrait with Mystic
Sky, for example-are clearly self-conscious commentaries
on the artists' identity, in these particular cases, as African
American women. On the other hand, however, it is
intriguing to note that, in many ways, the works by many
3
other women artists included in this exhibition-those
artists who worked after the suffragette movement but
long before the women's movement of the 1970s-had
nonetheless much to say about being an artist who
happened to be a woman. Is it an accident, for example,
that Helen Sieg] would work on images of inventive fantasy
for children's books when she herself was a mother of eight?
Or that Kyra Markham, working during the Depression to
provide positive views of a downtrodden society, would
choose to make her protagonist a woman begging for
coins? Or that Sarai Sherman, when using biblical stories
to illustrate contemporary issues would select the stirring,
sexual story of the young bride in the Song of Solomon?
The work of these artists is
a good reminder of the fact that
art is, despite all other valid
considerations, a personal expression for the artist who makes it:
despite our postmodern tendencies to place critical emphases on
the work and the viewer, on psychoanalytic investigation or on
deconstructive strategies, the fact
remains that these are works by
people,
whose , identities
are
closely bound to the works
themselves. Given this relationship of the women artists to their
work, it is perhaps suitable to
conclude this introduction with
a consideration of the working
habits and creative ideas of the
artists represented here.
As it happened, Blanche
Dillaye not only went to Paris in
her younger years, but also sent
Figure 2 Toshiko Takaezu giving
back to her native Philadelphia
Dickinson College, 1983.
long, annotated reports of her
experiences there. That her activities as well as reports were
viewed as unusual at that time is evident in the fact that
her remarks were not only published by the Philadelphia
papers, but reprinted as well in the New York Times. In the
August 23, 1894 edition of that paper, she (as regular
exhibitor in the New York Etching Club) was quoted as
admitting that it was "amusing to come upon the streets of
this famous old town [Paris J on a morning and find their
still, staid, almost deserted air disturbed by a new and awful
creature known as the American art student." She
explained further that this phenomenon was predominantly female, one who "[i]n low shoes and lank ankles, with a
palette as big as a barn door on her thumb, her sketching
traps swung over her shoulder or lugged under her
arm, ... strides with long, masterly steps through the market
4
place, a conquering-army air about her that would hardly
seem to be justified by the canvas which she carries boldly
exposed to view with perhaps her maiden effort in landscape on it."1 Dillaye's bemusement at seeing so many of
her own kind in Paris speaks volumes about the changing
conditions of art education that influenced all of the
women artists seen in this exhibition. Dillaye was witnessing the sudden boom of women who sought art training
but who, at the end of the nineteenth century, were still
the victims of a long-standing stereotypical mentality
that-even in their own peers-maintained that the female
art student was and would always remain an amateur. The
identities and work of the famous women Renaissance
painters that we now know (for
example, Sofonisba Anguissola,
Lavinia Fontana, Elisabetta Sirani,
or Artemisia Gentileschi) were
completely unknown to nineteenth century art lovers. The few
women who achieved acclaim in
that century (for example the
French woman Rosa Bonheur in
painting or the American Harriet
Hosmer in sculpture) were not
only considered the absolute
exceptions that they were, but
were also subjected to subtle
suggestions that they were not,
perhaps, truly "female" to have
accomplished so much in a man's
domain.As Linda Nochlin has
pointed out, in an article now
recognized as instrumental in
establishing critical questioning
of the art historical canon in
1970, one key to this situation
a workshop demonstration,
by the late nineteenth century
was the training-or
lack of it,
to be more precise-for women artists. As has elsewhere
been established, the problem of women artists' inaccessibility to required training occurred already in the
Renaissance, when the development of illusionism based on
mathematical and scientific perspectives coincided with the
discontinuation of sending girls to public schools: in
Renaissance Italy in particular, girls were limited to home
or convent education that undervalued mathematics and
science at precisely that time when a new pictorial vision
imposed the need for just such principles to be mastered
by artists.? Nochlin established, furthermore, that such
restrictions continued fairly unabated throughout most of
the nineteenth century, when "high art" that focused on
illusionism and especially the nude figure were prized at
precisely that time when most women were neither
trained in the scientific principles nor allowed to study
anatomy, especially by sketching from the live model."
Thus the view adopted by Blanche Dillaye during her
early months in Paris was one that had been assumed by
most since the Renaissance; it was also the view of most in
America, who not only adopted the same gender-based
distinctions in society and art, but who were also aware of
European continuations of those distinctions. When, in 1868,
the American Winslow Homer visited Paris and sent back
numerous pictures to be translated into illustrations for
Harper's Weekly, he included a view of Paris's most famous
museum, notably showing Art Students and Copyists in the
Louvre Gallery, Paris (Fig. 1). Here, the predominantly
female students are depicted as serious, yet engaged in
that form of art learning that was not emphasizing direct
observation, scientific knowledge, or even creative inven, tion: Homer's women are working in the time-honored
tradition of learning from the masters, by diligently copying
their works.
That our exhibition chronologically begins with
Blanche Dillaye is therefore instructive, since she herself
soon after her stay in Paris, and no doubt emboldened by
her experiences under the enlightened teaching ofThomas
Eakins, broke most of these gender expectations, continuing
to work as an earnest exhibitor in New York, playing a
respected role in the artistic community of Philadelphia,
and never wavering in her self-identification as an artist.
Investigation of the lives and works of the nineteen other
artists included in this exhibition, all Americans working in
the twentieth century, has furthermore proven the degree
to which many later women followed the lead of artists
like Dillaye. These artists, almost all traditionally and
university trained, were critically recognized throughout
their career, and continuously worked as professional
artists. Often, it is they who are now the teachers, holding
faculty positions at universities or working with students in
master-classes and workshops (Fig. 2). They are, therefore,
properly identified not as women artists but as artists who
have significantly enriched our views and our visions of
the twentieth century. It was the desire of the curators of
this exhibition, having begun with the selection of
American women artists of the twentieth century, to most
forcefully emphasize not the conunon bonds of these
artists-although some may be present-but rather the
incredible diversity of media, skill, style and ideas that they
possess and present to us here.
Sharon L. Hirsh
l"Current
News of the Fine Arts," New York Times (August 23, 1894): 4.
2wornen were barred from the study of the nude model from the sixteenth to the
nineteenth century; unfortunately, such study was considered in America as it was in
Europe to be the basis of solid training in most fine arts media. See Whitney Chadwick,
Wo111e111Art, and Society (London.Thames
and Hudson Ltd., 1996), 7.
3Linda Nochlin, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?,"
and Power (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 145-178.
Women, Art1
5
1
JUDITH BROWN (1931-1992)
The Knight, 1963
Welded steel, 28 l/4 x 12 3/4 x 26 in. (71.7 x 32.4 x 66 cm.)
Not signed
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Meyer P Potarnkin, 69.1.7
Not previously exhibited
Unpublished
Judith Brown's The Knight is made of welded steel from
found objects, including the mechanical pieces used to form
the knight and his horse. A primary motif is the gear, which
is used for the knight's head and doubles as the base.
In The Knight, Brown uses objects of modern industry
to construct the horse, which was the traditional mode of
transportation in pre-twentieth-century society. In 1892,
Henry Ford built the first automobile and founded Ford
Motor Company, encouraging people to stop riding horses
and start driving cars. In the 1960s, the machines were at
their peak; cars and other machinery parts were being mass
produced, and ironically these machines were described as
having horsepower engines-referring to the first means of
transportation. Created during the age of the automobile, it
is not surprising that Brown's sculpture of a medieval figure
is welded from junkyard machinery.
Brown's primary method of creating The Knight is welding, which is the melting of metal using an electric current.
The process requires intense focus since it can be extremely
dangerous due to the high voltage and poisonous gases and
fuels given off by the heated metal. It is easy to see the
places Brown solder-welded; connections on all of the
different pieces like the head, spear, and shield are obvious.
The shield has metal drippings on it, which Brown created
by melting the metal and letting it drip right onto the
round form; this process is spontaneous, whereas the figure
had to be carefully planned.
Brown uses found objects (scrap steel, shaped steel, and
junkyard objects) to construct The Knight,and through this
fused assemblage a new image is created. Brown's daughter,
Leslie, has said that her mother liked the idea of taking
found objects and making them into something that was
entirely her own. This is untraditional sculpture, which
does not insist upon the polished imitation of living forms,
or carry specific purposes like trophies of war, symbols of
professions, or attributes of gods. Brown's work, like many
other twentieth-century sculptures, follows neither the traditions of finished figure nor carries a monumental function.
As such, it follows the trend started by Pablo Picasso, who
broke with traditional sculpture when he made a guitar
out of sheet metal and cardboard in 1912.
Brown grew up in New York City where she attended
private school, and subsequently graduated from
Georgeschool, a Quaker boarding institution. She was of
6
the upper-middle class and her weekly activities included
horseback riding and the theater. Her love of theater
helped her to get more involved in the arts, and her love of
horses provided her with favorite sculpture motifs. Brown
majored in art at Sarah Lawrence College and studied
sculpture with Theodore Roszak, who was well known for
his constructed pieces of molten forms in welded and
brazed metal, often violent or cataclysmic in theme. He
was a major influence in Brown's life, and she had great
interest in his work in metals. After graduating from Sarah
Lawrence College, Brown married and opened her first
studio, still under the tutelage ofTheodore Roszak. She
later set up a studio in Reading, Vermont, at her mother's
summer home. In 1978, she bought her own studio in
Manhattan where she did some commissioned work. These
included her "Carytids," steel rn.onumental sculptures which
were commissioned by Pepsico in Purchase, N.Y., and a
series of small sculptures for Tiffany's New York store
window.
Throughout Brown's life, it was important that she use
her artistic talent to earn her living. According to her family,
she would do almost anything to sell a piece: she would
reduce the price of the work, adjust the payment plan the
buyer had agreed upon, and even break up pieces in a
series. Brown also gave away her art as gifts for her friends.
Brown wanted her works to be owned and enjoyed; by
making gifts and encouraging buyers, she assured that her
work is now all over the country in private and public
galleries as well as in individual homes.
Brown's The Knight reflects the industrial atmosphere
that America was witnessing in the 1960s. By making this
sculpture from found machinery parts, she created a beau. tiful work of art from junk. Like Picasso and Roszak
before her, Brown was able to create from cast-aside metal
an enduring work of art.
Heather L. Troutman
1 All of the personal biographical
information .in the essay is based on an interview
by phone with Leslie Brown, November 18, l998.
2Albert E. Elsen, Origi11s of Modern Scutptwe: Pioneers and Premises (New York:
George Braziller,
lnc.,
I 974), 75.
3 Andrew Carnduff Richie, Scnhnure of the Ti1;cntietli Century (New York: The
Museum of Modern Art, 1952), 232.
41nscitutions
that own her work include The Brooklyn
Modern Art, and The Lewis Newman Gallery in California.
Museum, The Museum of
2
HELEN GERARDIA (1903-1988)
Lithograph, 21 3/ 4 x 17 in. (55.2 x 43.2 crn.); image: 17 7/8 x 14 in.
(45.5 x 35.6 cm.)
Signed: l.r.: Helen Gerardia
Gift of Peter Horn, 87.7.4
Exhibited: 5th National Print Show (Silvermine Guild);Jewish Museum of
New York City; Museums in Spain Travel Show; Pratt Institute (Brooklyn,
NY); Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City, NY); Fayette Art
Museum (Fayette, AL); Georgia Museum (Athouse, GA); Lowe Gallery
(University of Miami, FL).
Unpublished
Although Helen Gerardia was born in Russia, she came
to America under the wing of the Abstract Expressionist
painter Hans Hoilinan; she was training with him at the
time and attended his school from 1946-4 7.1 In addition,
she trained in numerous other schools and workshops,
mostly throughout the forties. She was accomplished in
more than one media, and often her shows included both
painting and lithographs. Another one of Helen Gerardia's
accomplishments was owning the Gerardia Workshop,
where she taught a wide variety of techniques in different
media including etching, lithography, and painting.s
Gerardia became most ~ell-known for her works executed between 1952 and 1972.3 Some of her works were
said to be somewhat cubist; however, her style seemed to
change, with the addition of color, in 1959.4 Ascent, which
is not dated, does contain bright color, and the assumption
can be made that it was done around or after this time.
Ascent is striking in composition, space, shape, and
color. It has a composition that is based on a diagonal
throughout the entire picture plane. This strong diagonal,
including all the objects against a dark background, runs
from the bottom right corner to the top left corner of the
lithograph. This is often considered to be a strong format
for a composition; Gerardia, however, added some drama
of her own. The drama is created by the direction in which
the diagonal runs: right to left. It creates a conflict for
western viewers by contradicting the manner in which
they would normally read. However, this contradiction also
creates a more forceful upward movement and therefore
produces an accurate impression of the title, Ascent.
Gerardia's use of color is also a unique quality of the
lithograph in relation to her elaboration of positive and
negative space. Her only use of color besides black and
white is in the background which is a vibrant deep lavender.
The lavender is an element which makes the composition
even stronger. Her use of color, as described by a critic in
1959, " ... carries her most personal message and softens the
public statement ... "5 It compels the viewer to concentrate
more on the direction of the objects in the picture, but
also allows for the negative space created by these geometric shapes to stand out to the viewer.
8
The negative space altered by these geometric shapes is
just as much an integral part of the composition as the
objects themselves. The background color emphasizes the
negative space and adds depth, softening the harsh outlines
of the geometric shapes. The shapes should not be ignored
either: they are strong geometrics, made less rigid by a
curvilinear half-ellipse. This softer shape makes the work
more approachable and less threatening for the viewer.
Gerardia exhibited at some of the most well-known
museums in the world, including the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York City, to good critical reception. As one critic wrote, "Her themes are clearly expressed
and show good arrangement .... "6 Yet another wrote of her
as being" ... an industrious artist, and hardly a day goes by
that one of her prints or paintings don't go on view or
win a prize in some corner of the country ... the results are
often visually exciting and pleasing in pattern.''7
Helen Gerardia was an accomplished artist whose style
was consistently strong without becoming trite. She had a
sense of what she wanted from her art as well, especially
from the arrangements of her compositions. Ascent exemplifies her understanding of all the formal elements which
is an integral part of creating a work of art. Perhaps Ascent
achieved an ambition which Gerardia spoke about: "To be
the best artist I possibly can. To pursue my own vision
with confidence."8
Kara R. Kuchernba
'1 Erika Decree and Mnrijon Head, The Presence qf Picasso: His liifluence and inspiration
exh. cat. (Carlisle, PA:TheTrout Gallery, 1989), 8.
2co11tc111pomry
Press, 1984), 187.
Biosmphy: VVim1en (St. Clair Shores, Ml: Contemporary
3occrce and Head (1989),
Biography
8.
4oecrce and Head ( 1989), 8.
5 Arts Magazine (April 1959): 63. Review of a show at the Bodley Gallery.
6Arr Ne11'5 (April 1952): 59. Review of a show at the Art Center.
7 Art News (March
1957):
56.
8co11telflp~rary Biography: Wo111e11 ( 1984), 'I 88.
9
3
VICTORIA EBBELS HUTSON HUNTLEY
(1900-1971)
Lower New York, 1934
Lithograph, 16 5/8 x 13 3/8 in. (42.2 x 34 cm.); image: 13 5/8 x 10 1/8 in.
(34.5 x 25.7 cm.); plate: 14 1/8 x lO 5/8 in. (35.8 x 26.9 cm.)
Signed: l.r.:Victoria Hutson 1934
Gift of Mrs. Grace Linn, 59. l.4
Exhibited: An. American View: From Country to the City (Carlisle, PA:The Trout
Gallery, 1988); Trials and Triumphs=American Prints from the 1930s and
1940s (Carlisle, PA:The Trout Gallery, 1991).
Published: Gina Labartino, AnArnerican View: Fro111 Country to the City exh.
cat. (Carlisle, PA:The Trout Gallery, l 988), 16; Alison Meyer and Nancy
Pergam, Trials and Triumphs: American Prints from the 1930s and 1940s exh.
cat. (Carlisle, PA: The Trout Gallery, 1991), 26-27.
Born at the turn of the century,Victoria Ebbels Hutson
Huntley began life in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey and
then proceeded to have an extremely lucrative career for a
female artist at that time. Although hers is not a household
name, Huntley has created many lithographs such as Lower
New York and was commissioned for murals as well.
As a lithographer, Huntley chose an unusual medium
for a woman at that time to work in, requiring a complex
studio with heavy materials and press. Even the stone used
for lithography is not easily maneuvered around, and as the
contemporary critic F.A. Whiting commented," [it] may
have been her slight stature and delicate childhood that
stirred her admiration for grand, vital forms." 1
Spending a majority of her career in the city, Huntley
was familiar with the skyline and the cityscape it had to
offer. The overall geometry and cubistic precision are
instantly appealing to the eye and present a New York that
is not being held back by the Great Depression that was
engulfing the nation at that time. Huntley presents an aerial
view that is interrupted with new style skyscrapers rising
up directly into the viewer's field of vision. This perspective
forces the viewer to look past the buildings to the small
monument in the background, recognizable as the Statue
of Liberty.
As an American landscape, Lower New York shows a
view of the city from an unexpectedly high position, and
this poses a major question that is put forth by this print,
and that is basically because most scenes like this were
from a lower point of view. The answer leads back to the
period in which Huntley was working. Focusing on the
hopelessness of the Depression was not her intention, and
instead she shows a New York that is booming with industry, a statue that evokes hope and freedom, and a city
whose architecture is changing with the times. Showing
the idea of the economy nearly destroyed by the Stock
Market Crash is not as important for her as showing the
technology and industrial rise of the approaching Golden
Age in the city. The elevated perspective chosen by the
artist suggests this forward advance in society, and Huntley's
10
positive approach in this print was clear to contemporary
reviewers. In a review for the Magazine of Art, the critic
F.A. Whiting summarized that "Mrs. Huntley in spite of
her recognition of the brooding unrest and tragedy inherent
in social problems of our day, is chiefly concerned with
making a universal statement of the permanent good of
living. Lower New York emphasizes this ongoing positivity
while trying not to focus on the negative social and economic aspects of the time."2 At the tirn.e of this particular
print, Huntley was becoming known for her works and
Whiting's article was emphasizing not only her abilities as a
muralist (after she won a commission in 1937), but also her
potential as an artist.
From Huntley's connection to New York and the distinctive aerial view, another hidden theme can be extracted.
This alternative reading is beneficial to the fact that people,
even if uneducated, would recognize this American scene
as a representation of New York at a time when the city
may have been considered "a male space."The 18th century
Rousseauian theory of men representing "culture, energy,
form and rn.ind" while countered with women corresponding to "nature and the earth," was an interpretation
which was still accepted by many in society of the 1930s.3
With several skyscrapers and the solid geometrical and
vertical structures in the foreground, melded with the less
defined and blurred Statue of Liberty, surrounded by water,
there is perhaps a suggestion of this Rousseauian idea, and
Huntley's questioning of it. Put into this context, men are
the aspects that rn.aintain and keep a city productive and
operational and are represented by the tall buildings and
skyscrapers while women in nature have Ellis Island to
portray their feminine domain.
In a gender-segregated field like the art world at that
time, Victoria Huntley would have found herself separated
from "male specific spaces" by barriers. The barrier seen
here is from the understanding of aerial perspective. We
know she is not floating and therefore there must be either
glass from a window she gazes out of, or a balcony. This
inclusion of a closed space that was considered socially
acceptable established a conflict for those women who
wanted to gain access to public spaces beyond their sociallydefined sphere." Huntley's attempt of this escape is intriguing
because she looks beyond her barrier into a denied world
and indicates her presence rather successfully. Public visibility for women in the 1930s was more extant than it had
been in the past, and many women artists worked in the
New Deal Art Programs, but the fact that so little is known
about these women artists of the twentieth century is
proof that this barrier still existed.
Lower New York is used as a device to portray the
American landscape in an optimistic, positive way and to
establish the idea of female and male spaces in the city.
Huntley's artistic ability brings the modern view to a crisp
and concise black and white study that frames the city in a
way that is unexpected. With the troubled times far below,
Huntley creates a feeling of advancement and hopefulness
towards the future.
Kerry Joyce
l FA. Whiting
Jr., "Victoria
Hutson Huntley,''
Magazine ofAri 31 (November
1938):
638.
2 Whiting
(1938), 638.
3 Rebecca Solnic, Visions ofA111erica: Landscape as Metoplior i11 tire Late Twentieth
Centnrv (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Jnc., 1994), IOI.
4 Griselda Pollock, Visions mid Differrnce: Fe111ii1is1111 Femininities and the Histories of Art
(London: Routledge, 1988), 50-90.
11
BARBARA LATHAM (1896-1986)
In the Park, c. 1937
Wood engraving, 11 7 /8 x 15 1/4 in. (30.2 x 38.7 cm.)
Signed: Lr. .Barbara Latham
Gift of Mrs. Grace Linn, 51.l.62
Exhibited: The Print Club of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA, 1937); An American
View: From the Country to the City (Carlisle, PA:TheTrout Gallery, 1988).
Published: Stephanie D'Alessandro, An American View: From the Country to the
City exh, cat. (Carlisle, PA:The Trout Gallery, 1988), 18-19.
The nineteenth century was a time of growth and
urbanization in the United States. People flocked to major
industrial cities seeking jobs and prosperity. With this rapid
popularization of urban environments came the necessity
for city planned parks. Frederick Law Olmstead (architect
of Central Park) among others, looked at the benefits of
city parks in Europe. Olmstead felt it was important to create
a place "designed to shut out the .urban environment"
providing "the elements of a rural setting that met the
psychological and social needs of residents of the city."1
One of the most significant arguments for city parks was
sanitation; it was noted in Europe by American travelers that
parks were sanitary escapes from diseased and dirty city streets.
For the last two hundred.years, urban dwellers have
increasingly sought out parks as calming escapes from the
fast-paced city. Families congregated on clean grassy patches
to relax and become closer to nature. However, these
activities were greatly modified as a result of the Great
Depression. Americans no longer had the luxury of employment accompanied by relaxing weekends in the park.
Latham's work entitled In the Park creates an atypical
view of parks and city life in general. Latham was born in
Walpole, Massachusetts; she attended Norwich Academy
and Norwich Art School as well as the Pratt Institute and
the Art Students League.? She married the painter Howard
Cook and settled in New Mexico after living in such places
as France, Italy, and Africa. She was a well-recognized illustrator of children's books containing Western and South
American thernes.> In the Park is unlike Lathams book
illustrations, however, because it is a reflection of her own
society rather than a fictitious story.
American society changed drastically in the 1930s as a
result of the Great Depression; art was no exception. The
introduction of New Deal Art Programs provided jobs for
artists and public art to be seen by all. Programs such as the
Works Progress Administration and the Federal Art Project
employed many. Although Latham may not have participated
in such programs, her work suggests an influence of this
social context.
In the Park is an ambivalent view of a city park. The
potentially ominous style and subject matter may be read
as a negative view of city life in the 1930s. However, when
considered more thoroughly, this image may be a quite
12
positive illustration of society, and in particular, the city.
The overall appearance of the work is very dark,
suggesting a nighttirn.e scene. However, Latham used the
technique of wood engraving, a technique that creates a
very dark image which has no relation to the subject
matter. Therefore, this work can also be a view of daytime
park activity. The abandoned baby carriages, on one hand,
are questionable because there are no children nor parents
present. One explanation for this could be a pessimistic
impression of society by the end of the Great Depression.
Latham may be implying that times were so bad, parents
couldn't care for their children in the city so they abandoned them in the natural landscape of the park. This is
only one reading of the work, however; the figure of the
street vendor in the center of the work may suggest an
alternative interpretation.
This street vendor has a well-supplied wagon of food
and she, herself, has the appearance of being fed and nourished; therefore this image may indicate a shift to a more
optimistic view of society. In addition, the abandoned baby
carriages, which at first appear desolate, may in fact be just
the opposite: rather than these children being neglected, it
is possible that they are simply at play out of the viewer's
sight. Americans, at the end of the 1930s, were finally able
to overcome the hardships of the Depression and their
young children demonstrated this new hope. If at play,
Latharn's unseen children are healthy, happy, and looking
towards a more positive future. Another indication of this
optimistic presence is the representation of the two figures
in the back of the work sitting on a park bench, who
because of their placement in the work, appear to be
mothers or caretakers. In this case, they would be yet
another clue implying a more flourishing society where
people can again afford the finer things such as personal
child care.
In the Park, at first glance, may appear dark and dreary.
However, another interpretation presents an argument for
an alternative, optimistic view of urban society approaching
1940. This park is not a destitute place but one of much
potential where there is an abundance of food, commerce,
and a suggestion of healthy and playful children eager for a
positive future.
Adrienne Deitch
1D:wid Schuyler, The New Urban Landscape (Baltimore and London:Johns
University Press. 1986), 27.
2Bi:rtha E. Mahony, Louise P. U1ti111er, and Beulah Fo!msbee,
Books 1744-1945 (Boston: Horn Book Inc., '1970), 33·1
Hopkins
lllnstratars ~/" Children':
3srcphanic D'Alessandro. A11 A111eriam View: Frans the Co1111rry to the City exh. cat.
l'A:Thc Trout Gallery, '1988), 19.
(Carlisle,
13
5
KYRA MARKHAM (1891-1967)
Penny, Lady?, 11/50 1936
Lithograph, 11 4/5 x 16 in. (30.0 x 40:6 cm)
Image: 9 3/4 x 12 3/4 in. (24.8 x 32.4 cm)
Gift of Mrs. Grace Linn, 51.1.64
Signed: Lr.: Kyra Markham
Watermark: 1.1.: GCM
Exhibited: Trials and Triumphs: American Prints from the 1930s and 1940s
(Carlisle, PA:TheTrout GalJery, 1991).
Published: Nancy Pergam,Iha/s and Tiiumphsi American Prints from the 1930s and
1940s exh. cat. (Carlisle, PA:The Trout Gallery, 1991), 15; The Chicago
Sunday Times, 1939 (illus.); Kyra Markham: Graphic fMJrks ·1934_ ·1945 exh. cat.
(Bronxville, NY: Sarah Lawrence College Art Gallery, 1977), 7, 11and14.
A symbol of Kyra Markham's generation, Penny, Lady'
shows a man and a woman begging for money. During the
Depression years, such scenes of poverty and homelessness
were typical on the streets in the city. I As viewers, we have
an interesting point of view on the scene: the older man
and woman look eagerly up at us as if we have just stumbled upon this cityscape. Markham enlarges the woman's
hand to enhance her projection towards us, and this spacial
disjunction is heightened by the awkward addition of three
horse's hooves in the upper right corner of the work. Two
children face the opposite direction, entertained by some
other event on the street. Although Markham has arranged
her figures in an unusual manner, she has managed to tie the
portions of the scenes together, making it readable to the
viewer in a spatially dramatic manner. An American Scene
Painter of the thirties, Markham created art in reference to
the unfortunate social conditions during the Depression.
The Depression years brought economic hardship and a
division of social class.s While some people were optimistic
for a better life in the future, other saw little hope for a
recovery without solving the problems they had at the
time.3 In Markham's Penny, Lady?, she focuses on the figures
depicting lower class society. The elevated point of view
provides a sense of control over the couple. The viewer,
trapped by the old woman's confrontation, represents hope
for recovery from her poverty-stricken lifestyle.
During the Depression, the American family was living
on thirty dollars a week. Inadequate food and clothing,
crowded housing, and a lack of proper health care were
just some of the effects of a lower income.i Social stratification was most evident during these years because people
were forced to obtain money any way they could. Penny,
Lady? is a work which has abjectly described the division
of classes, since Markham has implied the upper social class
by the position of the viewer. There was an unequal distribution of income in the thirties and forties which hurt the
working and lower classes. Markham has dressed the figures
in tattered clothing, but gives these rags an amorphous
quality. Shaped by her remarkable use of light, the clothes
appear rounded and soft.
14
Placing the older woman in the center of the print
suggests several interpretations. Markham may have intended
to represent fern.inist issues during the time. Since women's
role was limited to a life at home, they were restricted in
developing their interests, but also their sexuality. s It is
interesting that Markham chose to place the worn.an in the
center, with the man slightly behind her: she goes against
the social norm to heroicize the woman for her persistence.
The woman is hopeful and enthusiastic, as she extends her
hand and leaps out from where she is standing.
Since unemployment was high during the Depression,
many people were forced out into the streets to find financial assistance.6 The couple in Penny, Lady? comes out from
behind a cart to greet the viewer. The handle on the side
of the large box cart behind the woman indicates that it is
a mechanical calliope, "a set of organ pipes controlled by a
mechanical means, usually a barrel."7 The woman holds a
tambourine in her right hand. A popular instrurn.ent since
the medieval times, the tambourine adds a happy and spirited feeling to the setting. The woman's excited expression
and local color act as our link to the on-going scene that
we the viewers have stumbled upon. By incorporating
instruments in the scene, Markham has transformed this
scene of poverty into a scene of jovial city life.
There is little information about Markham; during the
time of the Depression she was, however, successful in
illustrating American scenes. People who do remember her
describe her as "a large woman, dynam.ic, strong-willed,
vigorous, hard-working, fascinating to watch and totally
devoted to her work." She had a narrative style that survived
in alm.ost all of her works. Even though the scenes were
typical of American life, she added her own "fantasy to the
· genre."8
With a lithographic crayon, Markham has softened the
overall image. This approach helped Markham to create
tonal values throughout her work. She uses the light to
mold, exaggerate, and at times obscure her figures and their
features. Concerned with the struggling lower class,
Markham thus softens the typically harsh scene of poverty,
portraying these characters as victims of a society plagued
by the Depression.
Markham's work has been exhibited in several institutions throughout New York and Pennsylvania, including
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the National
Association ofWomen Painters and Sculptors, and the
National Academy of Design.? In 1939, she completed
works for the Works Progress Association at the World's
Fair in New York. One of the purposes of this Fair was to
promote the American scene, whether they be country or
city scapes. Penny, Lady? provides Americans with a chance
to catch a glimpse of what city life was like in the thirties.
Tobey Sparrow
lnc.,
1 Lee D. Witkin, Kym l\llarkha111,A111erica11
·1981), 3.
Fantasist (NewYork:The Witkin Gallery
2Joseph A. Kahl, The Jl111erica11 Class Str11ct11rc (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and
Winston,
1967),
3wickin
108.
(1981),
3.
4David B. Grusky, Social Stmificotion (San Francisco: Westview Press, 1994), 192.
6Merna Popper, Kym Marklia11J: Graphic IM>rks 1934-1945 exh. cat. (New York: Sarah
Lawrence Art Gallery, 1977), 5.
71\llwical h1s11w11e11ts qf the IM.nM illus. by the Diagram Group (New York: Fact~. on
File, 1976), 252.
8w1tkin (1981), 3.
9 A11Jerica11 Art Todov: New Yark World~ Fair, (Poughkeepsie.Apollo,
1987), 29.
Scrusky (1994), 361.
15
6
BETYE SAAR (B. 1926)
Mystic Sky with Self Portrait, 1992
Color silkscreen on pasted board, 20/100, 25 3/8 x 21 1/2 in.
(64.5 x 54.6 cm.)
Signed: I.e.: Berye Saar 1992
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Meyer P Potamkin, 1997.4
Not previously exhibited
Unpublished
I attempt to create an object that suggests spirituality without
pertaining to a specific religion. My goal is to show cultural differences and universal similarities.
Betye Saar, 1995
Mystic Sky with Self Portrait embodies a certain maturation achieved by an artist whose work and career is a
continuous journey of one woman's life reflected in her
art. Betye Saar was born in Los Angeles, and was educated
at the University of California, California State University,
and the American Film Institute. Saar has been involved
with art all her life, but established herself as a professional
artist at the age of 34.1
Saar began working as an artist in the early 1960s,
when the civil rights movement was gaining momentum;
Saar, along with many others, used art as an instrument
to explore racial and cultural issues raised at that time.
Empowered by injustice, these artists "gave visual form to
the growing gulf between the white American dream and
the black American reality."2
Saar, inspired by Joseph Cornell, a 1930s American
surrealist known for his constructed boxes of found objects,
began assembling materials confronting issues of racism on
many levels. She presented stereotypical derogatory images
of African Americans like Uncle Tom,Jim Crow, and Little
Black Sambo in mixed media collages. These included the
well known Liberation ofAunt Jemima, which depicts the
popular image of Aunt Jemima in a box with a broom in
her right hand and a revolver in her left. It is a powerful
and angry commentary on the United States' treatment of
African Americans, especially women.
Decades later, Saar's work has now become less political
and more private, even spiritual. Mystic Sky with Self Portrait
reflects this shift in subject matter and intentionality. For
many years, Saar has possessed an interest in many religions
of the world, the occult, and astrology. "She studies, travels,
and collects ideas and icons from other cultures and
incorporates all these things within her art."3 This work
exemplifies her fascination with mysticism and the occult
in relation to her own experiences, dreams, and feelings.
Saar's mature style is visible in the work as she demonstrates
life experience through the use of objects and symbols.
In Mystic Sky with Self Portrait, Saar illustrates herself
physically visible only in the lower right corner; the rest of
16
the work is comprised of floating signs and symbols, some
extending out from the piece itself, suggesting a reference
to her early assemblages. Most of the symbols chosen for
the work are found in multiple religious and spiritual contexts. For instance, one of the objects is a triangle with an
eye in the center, a common icon that even appears on the
United States dollar bill. In early Christian iconography,
this image was a symbol of divine omnipresence or trinity+
The eye has been associated with the idea of light and
intellectual perspicacity, an image of spiritual expressivity. s
Finally, the triangle was also considered in ancient China to
be the sign for woman. Another universal image represented
by Saar is a heart. Ancient Egyptians believed the heart was
the source for all knowledge. In the Bible, the heart is
described as the "inner person."6 Hinduism considers the
heart as the seat of Atman, the counterpart in mortals of
the absolute." Saar also illustrates a hand with emphasized
lines relating to palmistry, astrology, and the role of the
cosmos. According to the practice of palm reading, the lines
on the hand, the life line, heart line, and health line tell
much about a person. Saar's choice of the eye, heart and
hand may be as a window into her soul for viewers to see.
Many additional objects and symbols are visible in the
work, relating to the role of all life within the universe.
Saar, influenced by numerous beliefs, shows herself as part
of this cosmic world. Contrary to traditional self portraiture,
Saar's illustration is psychological rather than physical. This
idea of"coming into representation"S has become increasingly common in the post-Freudian twentieth century but
was developed earlier by such artists of the Symbolist and
Expressionist periods.
Mystic Sky with Self Portrait is a representation of Betye
·Saar on spiritual as well as creative levels. She refers to
artists of the past by incorporating psychological rather
than physical concepts of self portraiture. She alludes to her
own artistic progression by using her earlier collage-like
techniques. By further incorporating many universal symbols,
Saar engages the audience in her own cosmic experience.
Adrienne Deitch
1 Penny Dunford, Dictionary ~f Wcm1en A niscs (Philadelphia:
University of Philadelphia,
1989), 261.
2Whitney Chadwick, f-Vo111c11, Art, nHd Society (LoudonThames
and Hudson, lnc.,
1996), 341.
3Betye Saar, Brandywine Workshop, (lames Van Der Zee Gala, 1992), n.p ..
4Hans Bierdelmnn», Dicuonerv of Sy111holis111 (New York: Facts on File, lnc., ·i 992),
354.
5\:lierdelmann
(1992),
6Bierdelnunn
(1992), 166.
7Bierdelmann
(I 992), 166.
8Marsha Meskirnmon,
"1996),xi.
122.
The Art
ef Rejlecuon (New
York: Columbia University Press,
17
7
FAITH RINGGOLD
(B. 1930)
The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Aries, 1996
Nine-color lithograph, 22 112 x 30 in. (57.2 x 76.2 cm.)
Signed: l.r.: Faith Ringgold 1996
Inscribed: I.I.: 10/100
Gift of the Dickinson Club ofWashington, 96.3
Exhibited: Unraveling the Mask: Portraits oj'Iwentietb-Century Experience
(Carlisle, PA: The Trout Gallery, 1997).
Published: Christie Grams, Unraveling the Mask: Portraits ofTr.ve11tieth-Cent11ry
Experience exh. cat.(Carlisle, PA:The Trout Gallery, 1997), 40-41.
Faith Ringgold's work reflects her identity as a twentiethcentury African-American woman. Although she was
taught to copy Rembrandt, Cezanne, and other European
artists, she soon incorporated African-Am.erican culture into
her works. She studied in many different countries and in
1991, while in Paris, began working on a series of quilts
which she later called the French ,collection.1 Ringgold's
nine-color lithograph, seen here, was created as one of a
series of prints made after the quilts. In The Sun.flower
Quilting Bee at Aries, Ringgold uses a very simplified style;
the figures appear appliqued, as they would in a quilt.
When Ringgold made each quilt, she wrote a story
directly on it to describe what was happening in the
image. Her main character in all of these quilt stories was a
woman named Willia Maria (an artist, model, and cafe
owner living in France) who was created by Ringgold as
an "alter ego."The story behind this print is Willia Maria's
desire to become an artist and entertain these eight great
women in France with whom she shall travel around the
world holding quilting bees in sunflower fields. Since these
women are determined to change the world, they are
significantly unimpressed with Vincent Van Gogh, who can
be seen approaching the group from the right.2 These nine
women contrast with Van Gogh, who had gone to Arles in
order to create an artistic revolution with other male
artists; unlike the nine women who did achieve their goals,
Van Gogh failed. Through this depiction Ringgold shows
that success is not limited to the white male.
Willia Maria's eight female friends, depicted in the story
quilt and this print, are all famous civil rights advocates.
Madam CJ Walker, known for manufacturing hair goods
and cosmetics, visited the White House in 1917 to present
a petition favoring federal anti-lynching legislation.3
Sojourner Truth (Isabella Baumfree) was an anti-slavery
activist who became a speaker for abolitionism and women's
suffrage, petitioning Congress to give ex-slaves land in the
"new west" .4 Ida Wells was editor and co-owner of a local
black newspaper called "The Free Speech and Headlight."
She helped establish the groundwork for the NAACP, the
oldest civil rights organization in the country.5 Fannie Lou
Hammer assisted in organizing a voter registration drive in
Ruleville, Mississippi to challenge the unjust voting laws
18
which required that everyone had to pass a literacy test
before voting. 6 Nineteenth-century heroine Harriet Tubman
raised money for clothing and schools for the poor; she is
most well-known for her involvement with the Underground
Railroad where she saved more than 3,000 slaves." Rosa
Parks is famous for her refusal to give up her seat on a
Montgomery bus, thus starting a 381 day boycott against
the Montgomery buses which resulted in the desegregation
of the city's transportation system.8 Mary McLead Bethune
founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial School for
Negro Girls, and she organized and became President of
the National Council of Negro Women. 9 Finally, ending
the half-circle around the quilt is Ella Baker, a civil rights
advocate who worked with Martin Luther King.t? It is
partially through these eight women's efforts that AfricanAmericans have the freedom they have today.
Faith Ringgold was born in Harlem, where her father
was a driver on a city sanitation truck and her mother was
a fashion designer. It was her mother who stimulated
Ringgold's love of fabric; however, both parents insisted that
she graduate from college. She enrolled in the education
program. at the City College of New York because the liberal-arts program there was not open to women. 11 Ringgold
now is a professor at the University of California in San
Diego, as well as an artist, an author, a wife and a mother.12
Female African slaves have been credited with bringing
quilt making into American culture. Quilting bees provided
an opportunity to socialize and get better acquainted with
one another, thus allowing the traditions of AfricanAmerican culture to continue. Ringgold acknowledges
her heritage and the heritage of these nine women by
using an actual quilt as her medium.13
Ringgold feels the need to shed light on who she is as
an African-Am.erican woman outside of the stereotypes, so
she tries to retell the stories of the African-American. In
The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Aries, Ringgold honors some
of the many women who helped bring about change in
our nation's struggle for human rights, and inspires the
viewer to make something happen if they desire it enough.
Ringgold has said that she will never tell her students that
they will not make it as artists because "it doesn't matter
if a person has talent. All it takes is to really, really want it.
You can turn that no talent into talent."14 This motto
reflects the determination and perseverance which is
depicted in The Surifl.ower Quilting Bee at Aries.
Heather L. Troutman
I Fai1/1 Ri11g~o/d:T/ie Las/ S1ory Q11ill, prod. and dir. Linda Freernand (Chicago,
9"13ethune,
1991),
videocassette.
2Freemand
(1991 ).
3"Walker, Sarah Breedlove," The New Encytlopedia Britannica: Micropaedia, 15th edition,
12 (Chicago:
4"Walker,
Encyclopedia
Britannica,
lnc.. 1998),
464.
Sarah Breedlove," The New E11cyclopedia Britannica: Nlicropaedia, 12 (1998), 464.
5"Wells-13arnctt,
6"Hammer,
Ida Bell," The New Eiicyclopcdia Britannica: Micropaedia, 12 (1998), 575.
Fannie
7"Tubnun, Harrier,"
Mary McLcad,"
The Ne111 Encyclopedia Brira1111ica: Miocpeedia, 2 (1998), 176.
1 O"Baker, Ella," 77ie New Encyclopedia Britannica: Micropaedia, 1 (1998), 435.
11 Wendy Slatkin, The Voices afWa111e11 ArrisJs (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1993),
Lou," The New Encvclopcdin Britannica: /\l!icropardini 5 (1998), 232.
7Jie New E11cyclopedia
Britannica: Miaopocdio, 12 (1998), 25.
8" Parks, Rosa," TJ1e New Enrvclopedio Britannica: Miaopoedia, 9 (1998),
161.
318.
12Her works reside in the permanent collections of many museums including the
Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum
of Modern Art. She has received more than 75 awards, fellowships, and citations, t:\IVO
National Endowments for the Arts Awards, and eleven honorary doctorates.
13Sharon F. Patton, Ajifr1111-A111ericm1 Ari (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 67.
14Freemand
(1991).
19
8
PHYLLIS COHEN (B. 1939)
Bowl of Cherries on Lace Tablecloth Jl, 1979
Color woodcut, 24 1/8 x 35 5/8 in. (61.2 x 90.4 cm.); framed: 32 l/2 x 43
112 in. (82.6 x 110.5 cm.)
Signed: l.r.: Phyllis Cohen
Inscribed: I.I.: l/60
Gift of Dr. Paul Kanev, 98.6.5
Not previously exhibited
Unpublished
Simplicity is a word that describes Phyllis Cohen's
works and yet the artistic challenge of the woodcut printmaking method that she uses is anything but simplistic.
Bowl of Cherries on Lace Tablecloth II is one example of an
image she can carve from a block of wood, although this
particular print was made using more than one block. Her
use of multi-colors makes the entire process more complicated and results in a work that is more visually exciting
than if it had been done in black and white.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Phyllis Cohen did not
begin her artistic career as a woodcut printmaker, but as a
painter. As well as not finding her medium immediately,
she was not on an artistic path. at first either. In 1957when she attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New
York-her major was, surprisingly, government. Her work
in woodcuts began only in the mid-seventies, and since
then she has created a large body of prints including the
one seen here.
Her method "adheres to a traditional technique but
pushes the boundaries of the medium; she works each area
of the block individually, carving each as a separate piece
of a larger puzzle."1 This leads to a finished product which
is a sharp and precise print with bold colors that are both
sirn.ple in shape and intricate in their relationships. The
artist herself best describes the two methods she uses: "after
creating an image, I cut the block creating, in effect, a jigsaw puzzle. Those individual pieces not left as flat surface
areas are relief cut and/ or incised before they are inked,
reassembled, and printed on a press. There can be as few as
five individual pieces and a single pass through the press, or
as many as fifty pieces and five printings. Apart from the
jigsaw technique, I sometimes use the Japanese method of
printing: carving a single block per color."2
The print Bowl of Cherries on Lace Tablecloth II, is a
woodcut that includes basic images with a main focus on a
bowl of red cherries. The bowl sits on what appears to be a
white lace tablecloth that has been placed over a wooden
table, creating an interesting image. The wood of the table
seems to be the relief part of the woodcut but, the method
that Cohen has used here is actually a process that has the
tablecloth being the area that was cut away and the table as
the area that was inked. Cohen's simplicity is seen in this
print, despite the complicated method of the printmaking
20
process. The boldness and subtlety as well as the distinctive
quality of the work give it a crispness and solidity. The use
of light and dark, simple geometric shapes, and the effect
of the different textures on a woodcut, all combine to
make this print visually interesting, especially with the
main focus of the viewer directly on the cherries.
Fruit has regularly been considered a feminine form,
"and there is often a comparison between fruit and human
flesh, particularly female analogies."3 Sitting in a white
bowl with no visible imperfections, the cherries take on a
shade of red that makes them look ripe and succulent. "A
bowl of fruit is said to belong to charity and can represent
a reward of virtuousness and can even symbolize heaven."4
With these interpretations in mind, the forms that are
recognized as cherries, are here a symbol of a woman's
work and not necessarily a sexual reference. While cherries
can be seen in iconographic ways, many of Cohen's works
are fruits that were available out of convenience more than
for symbolic reasons.>
Phyllis Cohen's primary intention for this particular
print was a technical challenge: she cut away parts of the
wood to create an embossed look, and to do this she
incorporated both of her woodcut methods, Along with
her complex carving process, the importance of Cohen's
colors cannot be neglected. The bold cherry-red and the
white lace are perfect for representing this idea of pulling
the image out of the wood. "The tremendous appeal for
Cohen in working with this medium is in the combination
of the aesthetic and the craft inherent in woodcut printn1aking."6 Bowl of Cherries on Lace Tablecloth II complements
this idea of the artist's ability in hand-pulled forms and it is
_a demonstration of the complexity and laborious process
that goes into a woodcut.
Throughout her work, Cohen often used many objects
such as fruit and flowers to study and interpret in her
complex printmaking methods. Here, the pieces of Phyllis
Cohen's puzzle come together to form Bowl ef Cherries on
Lace Tablecloth II.
Kerry Joyce
l Nancy E. Green, T1u: Book mu{ the Block: Works by Phylfis Cohen exh. brochure
(Ithaca, NY: Herbert F.Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, 1997), I.
2Grccn (1997),
4.
3Philip Thompson and Peter Davenport,
St. Martin's Press, 1980), 107.
The Dictionary q/ Crap/tic [111ages (New York:
4Jamcs Hall, Diaiouarv of S11(1jee1s and Sy111bols ojAn (New York: Harper and Row
Publishers,
1979), 52.
Slntcrview,
by phone, with Phyllis Cohen on December 7, ·1998.
6creen ( 1997), 4.
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21
9
LEONA PIERCE (B. 1922)
Sunny Day, 1953
Color woodblock, 15 3/4 x 20 in. (40 x 50.8 crn.); image: 13 1/2 x 18 in.
(34.3 x 45.7 cm.)
Signed: Lr.: Leona Pierce
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Meyer P Potamkin, 57.1.33
Not previously exhibited
Unpublished
In the woodcut Sunny Dav, Leona Pierce presents a
scene in a nearly square format with two images of a boy
and sun placed within the picture plane, primarily using
the colors of red and black to enhance the contrast of fizure
b
and ground. Pierce was especially known for her woodcuts
as well as her work in painting and other graphic arts.
Born in Santa Barbara, California, and the daughter of
two school teachers, Pierce attended Stripes College where
she studied with Millard Sheets before going on to
Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. She further studied
at the Art Students League in New York City, where she
worked with Cameron Booth andYasuo Kuniyoshi.
A major theme of Pierce's oeuvre is children and children
at play, as pictured in Sunny Day The two images of the
boy and sun are inked in black, while the background is
layered in hues of purple, yellow, and red. Red, the dominant color of the background, contrasts substantially with
the black figures of the boy and sun, which appear to be
receding into the background. This high contrast of colors,
as well as Pierce's technique of cutting with the grain of
wood, allows side grain to show from the original woodblock, creating a "crayoned texture in the colors, and
allotting to a decorative work of art, as well as a sense of
realism of the material."1
Together, the boy and sun symbolically represent the
emotion of happiness. The figure of the boy appears to be
doing a cartwheel, an activity associated with the carefree
and innocent attitudes of youth. As a critic of the time
suggested, "Pierce focused her work on the subject of small
children, playing and amusing themselves with delightful
abandon."2 The image of the sun is seen as a provider of
warmth and nourishment, which in many cultures are
qualities associated with happiness.
The combination of the particular colors of this work
displays a positive message as well. The warm color red can
be associated with the color of blood, a symbol for life and
birth; it is also linked to the concept of liberty and patriotism, Christ, and warmth. The blend of yellow and purple
with the red further indicates optimism and hope, as "yellow
is a bright color associated with delight and felicity, and
purple is a color associated with divine attributes."3 Black
also has many positive aspects about it: "black is a symbol
for might, dignity, and humility."4 Sunny Day thus expresses
happiness and peace.
22
During this period in her life, Pierce worked primarily
in woodcuts, and exhibited regularly in New York. In 1951
and 1953, she exhibited at Wehye Gallery, illustrating the
"child's world from. the child's point of view," and subjects
that were mostly "children and children's games."5
Children represented American society during the 1950s,
as some interpreted it to be a period of confidence and
happiness. World War II had just ended, and the "Era of
Good Feelings" was taking place. The fifties were also a
time when there was a tremendous increase in marriage,
with a subsequent "baby boom": "between the years of
1948 and 1953 more babies were born than had been over
the previous thirty years."6 The baby boom lasted for most
of the fifties, forming a society that "revered the family in
an extraordinary degree,"?
It seems that the boy in Sunny Day signifies these
feelings of assurance and optimism as well as the adoration
America had towards children at this time, possibly
correlating to the feelings of Leona Pierce herself during
this phase in her life.
Anne C. Cabell
1 F.P, "Exhibition at the Wehye Gallery,"!lrl News 61 (November 1962): 58.
2S.P, "About Art and the Artists," The Nc111 York Ti111es (2 November '195'1): 21
3J;:unes Hn\1, Dictionorv ~f Subjeits and Syi11bols in Art (New York: Harper and Row,
1974), 241.
4Henry
Dreyfuss, Sy111bolic So11rcebook, (New York: McGmv-Hill, 1972), 292.
5s.r (1951),21
6Richard Layman. A111crica11 Dcrnrles '1950-1959 (Ann Arbor: Gale Research Inc.,
1994), 264.
7William L. O'Neill, A111erica11 1-l(Qlr (New York: Pree Press, 1986), 33.
1
I
23
10
RUTH JACOBY (B. 1903)
again and again, n.d.
Acrylic on canvas, 40 1 /4 x 20 1 /4 in. (102.2 x 51.4 cm.)
Not signed
Gift of Mr. Roy Neuberger, 85.5.2
Exhibited: Treasure Chest (Carlisle, PA:TheTrout Gallery, 1986).
Published: Kathryn Van Schaick, Treasure Chest exh. cat. (Carlisle,
Trout Gallery, 1986), 14.
PA:The
Ruth Jacoby earned a Bachelor of Science from New
York University and completed postgraduate studies at the
National Academy of Design. She married Charles Jacoby
in 1929, and the couple formed the interior design and
decoration firm of Ruth and Charles Jacoby. Jacoby has
received a number of prestigious awards and has exhibited
her work in numerous museums and galleries;' she is a
member of the American Institute of Interior Desizners
b
and the National Association ofWonien Artists.?
again and again is a two-dimensional, vertical canvas. The
shapes in the painting, that is the letters that create the phrase
again and again, are repeated on the canvas without variation.
The letters themselves are interesting; the shape of the letters
cannot be characterized as geometric, vertical, horizontal, or
curvilinear, and therefore are remarkably neutral.
Lines often suggest emotions, such as anger or calmness.>
In this painting, however, the line represents a lack of emotion. Jacoby used stencils to create a smooth, thin, uniform
line throughout the work, which contributes to the painting's rigid style. There is no question that the line is flat
and linear; nowhere in the painting does it take on a
painterly appearance. Furthermore, the "a" in the middle of
the "again" lines up with the "a" in the "and" the entire
way down the painting. Although this line directs the
viewer's eye downward, the repetition of the elongated "d"
in the word "and" also serves to counter-accentuate the
verticality of the painting.
The bland colors utilized by the artist give the painting
an institutional look: the letters are all the same shade of
gray, while the background is a darker gray, and the empty
space in the middle of the a's and g's is filled in white. The
white has a high value and high saturation, while the grays
are more rn.uted with lower value and less color saturation.
Jacoby has used these contrasting colors to create a subtle
illusion of depth. This technique is not new; in his influential
nineteenth century treatise, The Principles of Harmony and
Contrast of Colors, M.E. Chevreul discussed a neutral color
experiment for visual and depth contrast that bears a striking resemblance to the contrast of colors present in again
and again."
Although the overall effect of the painting is extraordinarily two-dimensional, the centering of the phrase again
and again creates some pictorial depth. In every other
again and again, the "a" and "d" alternate as to which one
24
touches the edge of the canvas. The spacing of the phrase
alternates, so that the justification volleys back and forth,
from left to right. This method of spacing has two major
effects. First, the positioning of the "a" and the "d" at the
edge of the right or left side of the canvas causes the letters
to act like barriers, giving the text a clear beginning or
end, making the painting horizontally closed and increasing
the verticality of the work. Second, the alternating of the
"a" and "d" implies movement in the work.
Jacoby's painting negotiates spacing in another interesting
way. Upon close inspection, an observer will notice that
the "and" that is partially cut off at the top end of the
canvas complements the severed "again" positioned at the
very bottom of the canvas; the two halves could be matched
together to complete the work. The fact that the "and" and
the "again" in again and again could match up, but don't,
creates a duality in the work. The split spelling of the words
also suggests that the work continues, with the broken
words again and again existing like a puzzle continuing on
forever.
This painting could be characterized as Minimal art
because of its extreme simplicity. For the October 1965
issue of Art in America, art critic Barbara Rose wrote an
article entitled "ABC Art," in which she designated this
new art that sought to represent the "minimal."S
Minimalism has the distinction of being the first art
movement of international significance to be completely
engineered by American-born artists." Minimalism is
primarily noted for reducing the role of the artist in the
execution of art, replacing this with purely formal considerations. Ad Reinhardt wrote in 1963 that, "The one
object of fifty years of abstract art is to present art-as-art
and as nothing else, to make it into the one thing it is only,
separating and defining it more and more, making it purer
and emptier."7 But for all its simplicity, Minimalist art is
anything but simple.
Viewing again and again as a whole involves combining
all the formal elements of style (shape, line, color, pictorial
depth, and composition), which work together to create a
complex composition of intense meaning. Line and shape,
along with color, provide the illusion that the painting is a
continuation. This illusion and the meaning of the repeated
words "again" and "and" combine to produce a deliberately
neutral composition that is an expression of repetition,
monotony, and boredorn .. Jacoby's work borrows its form,
the repetition of a commercial image or text, from Pop
Art. Combining this with Minimalism, the artist's representation of neutrality through repetition is strengthened.
Jacoby's painting is boring and should be read as such: it is
an attack on the post-war culture of middle-class America
in the 1960s, that sought to reach a comfort level through
conformity, again and again.
Mattie E. M'T.aughlin
1 lncluding the Whitney Museum of American Art, National Academy of Design,
Cleveland Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, and the Corcoran Gallery of
Art. The A. N. Marquis Company, Who:~· kVho o.f Americt111 /1Vo111e11 (Nashville: Denson
Printing Co., 1965), 583.
2Kathryn
Van Schaick, Treasure Cucst exh. cat. (Carlisle, PA:The Trout Gallery,
1986),
14.
3Martin Kempt, The Scie11ce of Art (New Haven.Yale
4chevreul
actually details
an experiment
University
using precisely
SRobert
Atkins, ARTSPEA K (New York: Abbeville Press, 1990), 99.
6 Artists such as Donald Judd, Tony Smith, Carl Andre, Robert Morris, and Dan
1=Javi11 were influential in shaping Minimalism.Atkins
7
Ad Reinhardt,
(Englewood
as cited by Jonathan
Cliffs: Prentice
(1990), 99.
Fineberg, Art Si11ce "1940, S1rategies of Bei11g
Hall, 1995), 296.
Press, 1990), 318-319.
the same colors
as again and
agai11. Principles of Har111011y a11d Contrast of Colors t111d their applicario11 to the ans (West
Chester: Schiffer
Publishing,
1987),
67-68.
25
11
VIOLET OAKLEY (1874-1961)
Portrait Study (George Washington), 1922
Pencil on paper, 18 5/8 x 24 7/8 in. (47.2 x 63 2 cm.)
Signed: l.r.:V Oakley 1914
Gift of Milton E. Flower, 1991.6
Not previously exhibited
Unpublished
Violet Oakley is most well-known for her mural
paintings at the State Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
However, it is important to recognize that Oakley holds a
unique place in American art, not only because of this
unusual commission, but also because of the spirit revealed
throughout her work.1 Oakley was a rern.arkable woman
whose art reflects her talent, her strong morals and her
religious nature.
Oakley was born into a family who exposed her to the
arts at a young age; at thirteen, Oakley began her studies at
the Art Students League in New York. Oakley subsequently
studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and
for a year at the Drexel Institute. At twenty-four, Oakley
was given a major commission to design stained glass windows for the Church of All Saines in New York City.
However, on July 21, 1902, Violet Oakley was awarded her
most important commission, a mural to decorate the
Governor's Reception Room at the Capitol in Harrisburg.
The architect,John Huston, wanted the "State Capitol to
celebrate Pennsylvania's role in the world, and its humanized
vision into a narrative that was comprehensible to everyone."
Since Oakley viewed her own work as a way to portray
international law and to convey political justice, Huston
sought her to produce the largest commission given to a
woman artist.? Oakley created an illustration ofWilliam
Penn's view of liberty and freedom during the 1770s. The
main theme for the murals was the founding of the colony
of Pennsylvania, entitled The Founding of the State of Liberty
Spiritual. Since Oakley was a devout Christian Scientist,
she eagerly researched William Penn and the Quaker
philosophy. Instead of simply showing a single historical
event, she presented in her mural a combination of historical
figures and scenes of religious persecution in England. As
the panels continue on the wall of the Governor's Reception
Room reading from left to right, Oakley introduced
William Penn and his ideal New World. In 1929, Oakley
wrote a book, The Holy Experiment, which was a folio of
the work she had accorn.plished at the Capitol. Combining
spiritual, social, and political history, her book was based on
the colonists who knew that, "amid the woods and hills of
Pennsylvania, they could build a society more in accord
with the kingdom of Heaven than any the world had
known."3 Oakley's objective was to elucidate an important
theme that was not necessarily a look into the past, but
rather a spark of light for the future.
26
The artist Edwin Austin Abbey had been commissioned
to paint the Senate Chamber and the Supreme Court
Room at the Capitol, but died before he finished the
project. Oakley was asked to complete it, and she continued
the theme established in the Governor's Reception Room.
In the Senate Room, panel #16 depicts George Washington
on horseback, while other soldiers march beside him in the
Troops of the Revolution, 1917-1927. Although Washington
wears a hat and rides in uniform, the mural image closely
resembles the Portrait of George Washington seen here. By the
time of Oakley's mural, Washington had grown in stature
from a commander in chief of the Colonial forces to a
national icon in the nineteenth century. In her book, The
Holy Experiment, Oakley incorporates a quote from. Hegel's
Philosophy of History that describes the importance of
including historical figures in works of art and how their
spirit remains with us: "Spirit is Immortal, with it there is
no past, no future, but an Essential NOW ... the grades
which spirit seems to have left behind ... it still possesses .. .in
the depths of its present."4 In a study of early depictions of
Washington, historian Wendy Wick has noted that, "a great
number of artists attempted to record Washington's features
and to capture those qualities of dignity and leadership that
impressed those who met him."5 In choosing to do a portrait ofWashington, Oakley had a great responsibility to
capture the leadership qualities of this established icon.
Charles Wilson Peale was the first artist to capture the
characteristics ofWashington in portraiture in 1776. Since
then, artists have focused less on the physiognomic details
ofWashington and more on the essential features which
make him most recognizable.6 Oakley chose to show the
typical view ofWashington in profile, capturing his grand
Roman nose, pursed lips, powdered hair pulled back from
his face, and intense stare. She did not need shading, or the
effects oflight to capture the image she wanted: the contour lines which define his features were sufficient.
Athough the drawing may have been executed as a cartoon
for the mural, Oakley managed here to capture
Washington's iconic identification.
Oakley had much success in the mural paintings for
the State Capitol, and was offered several commissions
until her death in 1961. She taught mural painting at the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1913-1917
and became one of the Founders of the Philadelphia Art
Alliance.7 Her work has been an inspiration for young
female art students. By portraying such influential men as
George Washington,Violet Oakley took on the challenge
to depict an American icon, one still considered "the most
sought after portrait subject in the world."8
Tobey Sparrow
/
.-
.. -
/
I R11la Evelyn Jackman,
A111erica11 Arrs (New York: Rand McNally and Co., 1927),
239.
2Catherine
Connell
Stryker,
The Studios
al
Cogs/ea exh. cat. (Wilmingcon,
DE:
Delaware Art Museum, 1976), 29.
3Govcrnor
and Mrs. To111 Ridge, Violet Oakley (Harrisburg:
Committee, Spring
Capital
Preservation
1996), n.p ..
4violet Oakley, The /-loly Experiment: 011r J-leritage.fi-0111 Willia111 Pc1111 ·1644-1944
(Philadelphia: Cogslea Studio Publications,
1950), 20, 21.
5Wendy Wick, "George Washington: An American Icon-The
Portraits," A111erica11Artjo11mnl
14 (4 November 1982): 89.
6Wick (1982), 89.
18th Century Graphic
7She received several awards in the thirties and forties including the Joseph Pennell
Memorial Medal for distinguished
work in the graphic arts from the Pennsylvania ..
Academy of the Fine Arts, the Walter Lippincott prize for her portrait of Qui ta
Woodward, and the Mary Smith prize from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arcs.
8Katherine Knox, The Stmrptes (New York: Kennedy Graphics, 1972), 67.
27
12
BLANCHE DILLAYE (1851-1931)
A Sketch of Roof Tops, 1899
Pencil sketch, 7 118 x 9 7 /16 in. (18 x 23 cm.)
Signed: LL: with snail monogram
Gift of Mrs. Grace Linn, 51.1.22
Exhibited: The Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
(Philadelphia, PA, 1899).
Unpublished
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts dates back
to 1805 as America's first formal art school. Thomas Eakins
began teaching there in 1876, consequently earning for the
Academy the reputation of "the most demanding and singleminded art school in America."1 Blanche Dillaye entered
the Academy as a student; she studied painting under
Thomas Eakins, from 1877 until 1882. She learned the
technique of etching from Stephan Parrish in Philadelphia
and also traveled abroad from 1885-1887, when she studied
painting further with Eduardo-Leon Garrido.?
Dillaye was born in Syracuse, New York, but was sent
to study at the Ogontz School, founded by her aunt, "where
young women seeking an alternative to the traditional
finishing school could acquire a thorough acquaintance
with literature, the arts, and science."3 After one year of
drawing instruction, she both began teaching at Ogontz
and followed the advanced studies program at the
Pennsylvania Academy. Dillaye was a strong leader within
the art community in Philadelphia: she was president of
the Philadelphia Water Color Club, founder of the
Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy, and served as one
of its vice presidents, and was a founder and president of
The Plastic Club. 4
Dillaye's hard work and dedication to her artistic career
are further exemplified by her participation in many of the
Salons in Paris, as well as in major expositions in the
United States.5 As a symbol of her motto, taken from
Shakespeare, "He goes but slowly, but he carries his house
on his head," she signed many drawings like A Sketch of
Roof Tops, exhibited here, with a snail monogram.v
The subject matter and execution of A Sketch of Roof
Tops typifies her trained style, appreciated by Dillaye's contemporaries." As Gladys and Kurt Lang have summarized:
"Her early work was praised for its accurate drawing, good
handling of light and shade and a fine discernment in
choice of subject matter."8 A Sketch of RoofTops is an example of her trained eye for composition and specialization in
architectural views which she depicted throughout her
travels in the United States, England, Europe, and Canada."
Although the site of Dillayes scene is unknown, she has
certainly captured the charming landscape of a village
extending over a hillside, and has probably positioned herself in such a way that her view, when sketched on paper,
is perfectly composed. Working within the landscape genre,
28
Dillaye's technique represents a transition between the
standardized mode of picturesque drawing, rooted in the
eighteenth century, and the "rustic naturalism" first evinced
by Romantic painters like John Constable (1776-1837)_10
A typical example of a proponent of the picturesque style
of drawing is John C. Clark, writing in 1827: "Clearness
and simplicity are excellencies which, united to accuracy
constitute perfection in sketching."!' When analyzing
Dillaye's drawing, we see these qualities of accuracy and
clearness from her use of linear and aerial perspective, and
from the avoidance of excessive embellishment.
Clark's emphasis on aerial perspective is particularly
emblematic in Dillaye's rendering of the trees. Clark claims
that, when " ... a few forms indicating the extremities of
trees or bushes should be sketched with freedom, this may
be produced by avoiding small forms ... observing that the
line thus produced by the pencil should be of the broken
or tremulous description, for the exclusion of stiff or formal
lines constitutes a charm in sketching.l'P But the charm in
Dillaye's sketch is also due to her use of line as a suggestion
rather than as a direct statement; this can be seen in the
subtle tracing of the bricks of the houses in the foreground.
Instead of outlining each brick in the building, she supplies
only enough information for the viewer to associate the
rest of the implication with its meaning, that is, the idea of
an entire brick or many bricks within the structure. This
flirtation with line is parallel to her own definition of line:
" .. .line is by its nature suggestive but not imitative, it deals
with selection and omission, not with the elaboration and
subtle tones. In all arts reserve is strength; selection presupposes knowledge; and tact in omission is the refinement of
understanding." 13
Krista Ann Mancini
1 As quoted in Gladys Engel Lang and Kurt Lang, Etched i11 Memovv: T/1c BHi/rlin~ and
ofArtistic Reputation (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990): 132.
2Phyllis Peet, A111erica11 Wo111e11 of the Etcl1i11g Revival exh. cat. (Atlanta, GA:The High
Snrviva!
Museum of Art,
1988), 54.
3LJng and Lang ('1990), 202.
4Biographic;1] information
from Pliilndelpl1in Arr Aliinnie, Memoriat
Watcrwlo'"
ai1d
Erchi11gs by Blanche Dillaye (Philadelphia:
5Pcct (1988), 54.
Thcsc include:
Philadelphia
Ohio Valley Centennial,
Exhibition of
Art Alliance,
1888; 1893
Chicago, the Woman's Building
and the Ladies' Parlor of the Pennsylvania
Cotton States ;111d International
in Atlanta, ·1895; Pan-American
Exposition
National
Universelle
Conservation
1932).
Columbian in
Building;
at Buffalo, ·190·1;
(Lonen, France), 1903; Louisiana Purchase in St. Louis, 1904;
Exposition
: 111d Philadelphia's s~squi-CentcnniaJ,
in Knoxville, 19'13; Panama-Pacific
San Francisco, 19·1 S,
·1926.
6LJng and Lang (1990), 202.
7 Previous research on Blanche Dillaye's works has proven the ease with which 111istakes can be made: with the n:::iming of titles. Here, I have concluded that what is listed as
"House-Tops (u1.1spccificd medium)" in 771e A11111wl Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania
!lwdc111y of the F111e llrts, -1876- I 9'13, viii tor the year of 1899. is in fact A Sketch of Roof
7bps.
Slang and Lang
(1990), 202_
9Jules Heller and Nancy G. Heller, Nonlt AJ11crica11 Wo111t~11 Artists
Ce11t11ry (New York: Carland Publishing, '1995), 157.
lOsteph::in F. Eisenman, Nineteenth Ce11t11ryArt:A
and Hudson, l nc., 1994), 123.
ef the Twentieth
Critirnl History (New York.Thames
· · ·====---------------------------------------------------------------~-~--·
J
1
.
'
11John C. Clark, A Series of Practical Instructions in Landscape Pai11ti11g i11 Wai:er Co/01m
C01Jlaini11g direcuons jor sketcl1i11gjimn nature, and the aµplicarion cljperspcctive (London: S. &
R. Bently, 1827), I 0.
12Clark (1827), 7.
13Blanche Dillaye, as quoted in Congress ofWomen, The Congress of Wowen 1-le/d i11
the Wo111au~~ B11ildi11g: VVorlrfis Co/1n11/Jia11 Exposition, Chicago1 U.S.A., "1893, With Pottmits,
Biographies, and Addresses (Chicago and Philadelphia: S.I. 13ell & Co., 1894), 643.
29
13
GRACE ARNOLD ALBEE (1890-1985)
Peaceful Afternoon, n.d.
Wood engraving, paper size: 8 x 9 1 /2 in. (20.3 x 24.2 cm.);
image 5 3/8 x 7 5/16 in. (13.7 x 18.5 cm.)
Signed: l.r.: Grace Albee; on block: l.r.: G.AJbee
Inscribed: I.I.: artist's proof
Watermark: Fidelity Union Skin
Gift of Mrs. Grace Linn, 51.1.2
Not previously exhibited
Unpublished
Delicacy and attention to detail were two of Grace
Albee's greatest artistic talents; both are evident in her
wood engraving Peaceful Afternoon. Although not dated, the
print had to have been completed prior to 1951, when
The Trout Gallery acquired the work as a gift from Mrs.
Grace Linn. Like a window, Albee's wood engraving invites
the viewer to move closer and to focus on the scene as if it
were a moment frozen in time. The majority of Albee's
prints are illustrations of outdoor scenes, specifically
American farmland and nature studies of the four seasons.'
Peaceful Afternoon represents a glimpse of American farm
life in autumn. In the foreground, on the left side of the
print and in front of large vessels for carrying water, Albee
includes a goat. Behind the vessels, there is a structure with
shutters that appears to be a barn. The most prominent
image in the print is a tree, dropping its leaves on the
ground, where a few chickens sit. The earth under the
goat, visible in the foreground, is dried up and barren.
The title of the work, Peaceful Afternoon, provides one
with the time of day represented. This is an afternoon: it
represents the process of slowing down and preparing for
night time. The goat is at rest and for the moment, the
chores have been abandoned. The composition also appears
to represent the season of fall, which relates to the time of
day, since both signify the process of slowing down and the
nearing of the end of a year or day.
Grace Albee was born in Scituate, Rhode Island; she
studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, and, later,
with Paul Bornet in Paris. The painter/printmaker
is most
well-known for her black-and-white wood engravings,2
and her work is represented in prestigious art collections in
the United States and abroad' In addition, Albee won
numerous awards during her lifetime; she was the first
woman to receive the Benjamin West Clinedinst Memorial
Medal for lifetime achievements in the fine arts."
Exhibitions that featured her work include American Prize
Prints of the 20th century, 30 Years of American
Printmaking, and the 20th National Print Exhibition.6
World War II had an effect on the art that Albee created: it was during this time, when her five sons were all
serving in World War II, that her art flourished." The artist
once commented on this connection between wood
30
engraving and her personal circumstances, saying, "it
became a balance wheel and a distraction from some of
life's worries."8 Printmaking provided Albee with a peaceful
pursuit. In the late 1930s, Albee chose to concentrate on
rural scenes, such as the farmhouses and barns that surrounded her during the forty year period that the Albee
family lived in the countryside of eastern Pennsylvania.9
Peaceful Afternoon is typical of Albee's production during
this period. Her work displays an attention to detail that
would have necessitated her full concentration and extensive time. Both the artist's practice of creating the print,
and the viewer's experience of looking at the print, can
be described as a peaceful escape. The artist and viewer,
through experiencing the print, depart from the reality of
war, city life, and stress, or whatever element of his or her
life that is a constant preoccupation.
Besides being particularly placid from a visual point of
view, Albee's work is also thematically self-consciously
American. Her regionalist subject matter is interesting
when one considers the fact that her artistic career was
refined during WWII. Albee's prints reveal how at least one
American artist, and perhaps more importantly a mother
with sons fighting in WWII, kept her calm, and invites us
to join her, in a Peaceful Afternoon.
Mattie E. McLaughlin
I For further examples, see Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs
A!llerirnn Prints i11 the Libmry q( Cougrc:ss; rr ca;trfog qf the co/lectio11 (Baltimore:
Division,
johns
Hopkins Press, 1970), 3-4.
2Jull.!s Heller and Nancy G. Heller, eds., North A111erica11 IMn11c11 l!.f the Tioensicth
Inc., 1995), 14.
Cc11t11r)' (New York: Garland Publishing,
3M:.rndk
Fielding,
Dirrionary 0JA111crirr111 paiutcr.\i sculptors, mu/ e11gra11crs (Poughkeepsie:
Apollo, c. 1986), 10.
4chris Pcrreys. Dicuonarv of'JM>111e11 Artisrs (Boston,
5Albert
Reese,fl111erica11
Prize Pri11ts (ftlie 20th
MA: G.K. Hall and Co., '1985), 9.
Cc11!11ry
(NewYork:Amcrican
Artists
Group, 1949), 2.
6The Brooklyn
Museum, 3011 ars of A111erirr111 Pri11t111aki11~{! (Philadelphia:
1
Flacon Press,
1977), 15.
7 Albert Reese ( 1949), 2.
8Albert
Reese (1949), 2.
9Eric Denker, Crace JI/bee: A111crirn11 Pri111111akcr (unpublished
manuscript
tion catalogue, 1998, National Museum ofWomen in the Arts), 1
for exhibi-
14
SISTER MARY CORITA KENT (1918-1986)
This Beginning of Miracles, 1953
Silkscreen, 16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 crn.); image: 15 112 x 19 3/8 in.
(39.4 x 49.3 cm.)
Signed: l.r.: Sister Mary Corita
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Meyer P Potarnkin, 69.1.33
Not previously exhibited
Published: Jules Langsner, "Art News from Los Angeles,'' Art News (April
1953): 44. !GAS (The International Graphic Arts Society, Inc., 1953).
Sister Mary Carita was a woman of many accomplishments throughout the span of her life, not only as a nun
and educator at Immaculate Heart College, but also as an
artist. Although she eventually left the Immaculate Heart
community, while she was there her time was well spent.1
Carita was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa and at the age
of eighteen she joined the sisterhood of Immaculate Heart
College located in Los Angeles. She did not begin teaching
within the community, as a professor of art, until she was
twenty-eight; she eventually earned a master's degree in art
history from the University of Southern California.? Later,
she was appointed to the National Advisory Council on
Education Professions Developmen~ by President Johnson
in 1967 .3 Sister Mary Carita left the convent and the
Immaculate Heart College in 1968, and became known as
Carita Kent.4
This Beginning of Miracles of 1953 is a perfect example
of the direct religious meaning of Carita's early works. The
theme of this particular work was taken from the Bible,
specifically the Wedding at Cana. s The significance of this
particular story was the miracle of Jesus turning water into
wine for the wedding guests to enjoy. The title of the work
was adapted in its original form from the New Testament
Book of St. John, "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in
Cana of Galilee and manifested his glory."6 The significance of this literary source is Carita's unconventionality in
illustrating it. Although she is using a traditional biblical
story, she modernizes it by creating an abstract work and
incorporating modern elern.ents such as a piece of architecture from the twentieth century? "Religion obviously
meant something to this woman, but it was not treated in
any sentimental way. .. .It appealed to [one's] social sense."8
This Beginning of Miracles is a wonderful assemblage of a
variety of religious imagery. The first specific image the
viewer will notice is Christ and the Virgin, at the top of
the composition and almost directly in the center of the
picture plane. This allows viewers to have a point from
which to start, and move their way around the remainder
of the intricate composition. Throughout, Carita emphasizes certain shapes, mostly of goblets and other glassware,
which convey the theme of the Wedding at Cana.
The silkscreen is very colorful and gives the viewer a
sense of looking at a stained glass window, with blended
32
secondary colors of mostly blue and a darker pink, which
reminds the viewer of the color of red wine. Corita uses
tonal-based modeling to create highlight and shadow within
the work; this emphasizes the effect of filtered light streaming through the composition. This outcome can also be
attributed to the medium of the work, because in serigraphy
the lighter colors are applied first, gradually working up to
darker ones.?
The innovativeness of this print, typical of Corita's
works as a whole, is significant also in its correlation to
the modern way of thinking that was occurring in the
Catholic religion around the time Sister Corita was working.
She and the other sisters of her convent specifically fought
to modernize the conventional image of the nun and
sisterhood by abandoning the traditional habit.t? Conflicts
such as these with the institution of Catholicism are the
reasons why Sister Carita eventually left the convent, but
they may have also unconsciously motivated her to strive
to create a place for women of the fifties and sixties, more
specifically women of the Catholic faith, in the arts. 11
This Beginning of Miracles illustrates one of the many
ways Carita did strive to create a reputation for a more
contemporary view of the sisterhood. By creating this
print as well as others in this abstract style, she emphasized
her modernity, but also allowed her spirituality to be evident. Much of what Sister Mary Carita achieved in her life
and artistic career went against many traditional views on
women's religious lives. As Whitney Chadwick has
explained in her history of women artists: "Access to
education and the convent, the center of women's intellectual
and artistic life from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries,
was often determined by noble birth .... Within the convent
women had access to learning even though they were
prohibited from teaching by St. Paul's caution that 'a woman
must be a learner, listening quietly and with due submission. I do not permit a woman to be a teacher, nor must 'a
woman dom.ineer over a man; she should be quiet.' "S
Carita not only produced interesting and enlightening
religious works of art during her career, but also exhibited,
taught, and eventually went on to operate a private gallery
of her own. By creating works like This Beginning of Miracles,
which emphasized a more modern side of religion and
"appealed to the social sense" of her viewers, she may have
changed the way people often thought of religion and
religious women in the twentieth century.
Kara R. Kuchemba
1 Mary Bruno, "Portrait
of an Artist," Newsweek (17 December 1984): 14.
2 VV/w5 Vf/110 of A1nericai1 IV0111e11i
Marquis Who's Who, '1907), 247.
3"Johnson
Appoints
Educators
Fourth
edition,
1900-1907
7Miller
(New Providence:
to Panel," The Ne111 Y<1rk Tunes (24 September
1967):
57.
4l3runo (1984),
'14.
5Arthur Miller, IGAS
6"The New Testament,
Bible House, 1941 ), 93.
(International
Graphic
Book of Saint John,
Arts Society,
2:11,"
lnc., 1953), n.p ..
T11e Holy Bible (New York: Douay
(1953), n.p.
8Bruno (1984), 14.The DeCcrdova Museum mounted a retrospective of Carita's
works in 1980.
9Clifford T Chieffo, Situ-Screen as a Fine Arr: A Handbook of Contesnporarv Silk-Screen
Pri>1ti11g (New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1967), 83-84.
lO"The Nun a Joyous Revolution,"
11 Bruno (1984), '14.
12Whitney Chadwick, lt[/0111e11,Arr,
Newsweek (25 December 1967): 47.
and Soriety (NcwYork:Thames and Hudson,
lnc., 1996), 44-45.
33
15
SARAI SHERMAN (B. 1922)
Who is this that Looks forth like the Dawn, fair as the
moon, bright as the sun,
Plate VIII from the Series The Song of Solomon, 1966
Etching, paper size: 19 5/8 x 25 3/8 in. (49.8 x 64.5 cm.); image: 12 1/2 x
16 5/8 in. (31.8 x 42.2 cm.)
Signed: Lr.: Sarai Sherman, I.I.: 9/25
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Meyer P Potamkin, 69.1.31
Exhibited: The Bible and Tioentieth-Centurv Artists (Carlisle, PA: The Trout
Gallery, 1983-1984)
Published: The Bible and Tiuentieth-Century Artists exh. cat. (Carlisle, PA:The
Trout Gallery, 1983), 9.
The Song ef Solomon is an exarn.ple of Sarai Sherman's
use of Old Testament biblical stories to express contemporary issues. In this case, Sherman was commissioned to
make a series of etchings portraying a religious theme.1 It
is interesting that she chose the book Song of Solomon
because it is a very sexual story and is rarely illustrated. The
work was made during the early fern.inist movement of the
1960s and those issues may have influenced her choice of
subject. The Shulamite, who came from Shulem in Issachar,
was outspoken, especially about her sexuality.2 Admitting
to the Israelite women that she was 'black and desirable, she
proclaimed, "I am black and beautiful, 0 daughters of
Jerusalem ... Do not gaze at me because I am dark." (1: 5)
This type of behavior and confidence, considered audacity
by western society before the feminist movement, would
also have been improper in the patriarchal Jewish society
in which the Shulamite lived. She did not adhere to society's
rules and is therefore a logical choice of subject matter for
a woman artist in the 1960s.
Sherman obtained her degrees at the Tyler School of
Fine Arts and the University of Iowa. She won numerous
awards, including the Fulbright Grant in Painting which
sent her to Italy from 1952 through 1954.3 Sherman never
followed any movement, always forging her own artistic
path." Instead, she engaged in a "search to find a 'reality' in
the problems of contemporary man."5 Embracing problematic issues in her works, she explored contemporary
humanity's alienation "from nature, his fellowman, and
himself," as a consequence of the fast pace of progressive
society> Although Sherman is concerned with social issues,
she is not a social realist with a political agenda or ideology;
her appeal is to broader fundaments of humanity. Recurring
Sherman themes include alienated society, conflict, fatality,
and archaic worlds: she often worked with classical myths
and biblical stories to portray contemporary concerns.7 In
the series Song of Solomon, Sherman used a biblical source
to explore the intricacies of passionate love, a universal
human issue. The eighth plate, seen here, examines one
aspect of love by focusing on the transition to womanhood
and the blossoming of sexuality.
34
The series Song of Solomon consists of ten prints combined as a portfolio; each etching corresponds to a specific
verse of the songs. The prints were hand pulled and the
first ten sets were numbered in Rom.an numerals. The
Trout Gallery owns set IX.8
The biblical book Song of Solomon is a profession of
passionate love between Solomon and his bride, the
Shulamite. The color scheme and the two figures in plate
eight all refer to the literary source and are combined in
the bride's figure. The etching is about the woman, and as
such, everything in the picture refers to her. She both
dominates the etching's space with her physical presence
and incorporates the various colors of the print into her
body. The sun, sky and gazelle represent elements that are
directly related to her.
These visual connections correlate to comparative verses,
in particular that of 6:10. In this verse, rn.aidens, queens and
concubines praise Solomon's bride by saying: "Who is this
that looks forth like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as
the sun."These images correspond to the glowing sun, the
blue layers of night color, and the white area lit by the rising
sun. After the imagery of the dawn, the woman is compared
to the moon, which in the etching, is represented by her
blue head floating in the night sky. Her head is in the
realm of night and is round like the moon's shape.
The gazelle is compared to both the Shulamite and to
Solomon. In verse 8:14, the bride says to her lover: "Make
haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag,"
and then in the verse 2:9, she equates him with the animal,
saying, "My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag."The
stag is commonly used as a sexual sym.bol, and here the
gazelle is also used as such, presumably for the male lover.
In addition, although female comparisons to a gazelle
might have ern.phasized the animal's elegance, thereby softening it and "feminizing" it, the terms in which the bride
and the gazelle are described in the verse are strikingly,
overtly sexual: "Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a
gazelle." (7:3) Thus the gazelle in Sherman's etching could
both represent Solomon as her counterpart and lover, as
well as the bride herself. The latter interpretation is further
supported by the fact that other images and pictorial
elements are based on verses that refer exclusively to her.
The dawn represents the awakening passionate love, the
corninzb into womanhood, and the next phase of the
Shularnites life as a rn.arried queen in a foreign court. She
is no longer a chaste child; she is ready to leave her home
and her virginity behind for the role of a wife, mother, and
lover. It is a powerful moment that is explored in this work
of art: the gazelle and the rising sun are symbols of the
woman's dawning sexuality.
This eighth plate is a good example of the sensitive
issues that Sherman communicates. The way that various
elements of the etching are incorporated into the
/r~.
'
Shulamite's figure and her identity translates Sherman's
topical interests into poignant visual language.
Lale Sylvia lsmen
·I
3Borrow (1983), 3.
4Marcello Venturoli and Edward Bryant, Sarai Slier111a11 exh. cat. (Rome, Italy: Galleria
Penelope, 1963), 7.
5Mario Penelope and Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, Sarai Shen11a11 exh cat. (Florence
Italy: Nuodevizioni
1 Randi Borrow, The Bible and Ti/Je11tietl1-Ce11t11ry Artists exn. cat. (Carlisle,
Gallery, 1983), 3.
2Burton Stevenson, '171e Howe Book cif Bible Q11olario11s
Brothers Publishers, '1949), 398.
PA:The Trout
(New York: Harpers
Enricho
Vallechi,
6venturoli
and Bryant ('I 963), 7.
7Penelope
and Ragghianti
1983), 30-3'1
(1983), 31
8Borrow (1983), 3.
&
35
16
HELEN SIEGL (B. 1924)
Aurora, n.d.
Woodcut, 9 7 /8 x 7 718 in. (25.1 x 20.1 cm.);
(20.1x12.7
cm.)
Signed: 1.r.: Helen Sieg!
Gift of Sellers Collection, 88.16.56
Not previously exhibited
Unpublished
image: 7 718 x 5 in.
Daughter of Leopold and Amelia Hapsburger, Helen
Siegl spent her childhood studying at the Academie for
Angewandtekunst in Vienna, Austria. Following her graduation in 1947, she had a variety of jobs as a designer, book
illustrator, and graphic artist. In 1953, she moved to A.rn.erica
to join her husband Theodor, who was the conservation
and technical adviser to the Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In America,
Siegl continued her artistic career, making relief prints
from wood, linoleum, and plaster blocks. Siegl invented
and developed the plaster block technique which was used
as a "substitute for woodblock prints during wartime when
materials were hard to come by."1 Eventually her work
became better known, and was handled by art galleries
throughout the country. Then, as Siegl explained, "I was
asked to illustrate specific manuscripts with woodblock
prints," many of which appear in children's books such as
Mother Goose: Twelve Rhymes on. Broadsides, Aesop's Fables,
and William Cole's The Birds and the Beasts Were There:
Animal Poems. 2 These illustrations depict many of the same
characteristics evident in Siegl's work Aurora.
Aurora is a colored woodcut that was probably completed sometime after 1953, around the time Siegl began
making woodblock prints as illustrations.Woodcuts became
a mid-twentieth-century
trend when its major attraction
became the "natural beauty of its grain."3 Aurora is identified as a woodcut by the horizontal lines that indicate the
grains of wood. It appears as if Siegl has used two blocks
of wood, as shown by the white gap within the colored
picture plane.
Siegl's style and choice of medium are appropiate to the
general them.es of her works: children, animals, and religious
events. Her style is natural, exhibited by the pattern of her
images and choice of media in the work. The medium
depicts basic genuine characteristics by which each figure
is cut with the grain of the wood, simplifying their form.
The town is reduced to geometric forms while the center
figure displays a series of linear lines harmonious to the
natural grain effect produced by woodcuts. The colors are
bright and attractive, expressing feelings of joy and optimism.
Siegl's choice of color and title can be directly linked
to the astronomical term aurora borealis. For centuries the
aurora borealis has been described as "curtains of colorful
lights displayed throughout the night sky."4 Some common
36
colors seen in the aurora borealis are red, blue, and violet,
similar to the colors displayed in Aurora. In Aurora, the
background colors of blue, purple, and turquoise recede
into the background as the warm color, red, projects boldly
from the image. The bottom of the print is cast in a dark
green and grey, showing the city visited by this nighttime
display of lights, and focusing the attention of the viewer
on the high saturation of the complementary color, red.
Siegl's use of color and composition draws the viewer to
the center figure: a mystical animal upon which a small
human figure rides.
Together, the image of the animal and human figure
adds an exotic and illusionistic element to Siegl's work
Aurora. Like the aurora borealis, the images in Aurora fill
one's m.ind with thoughts of mysticism and wonder.
Many cultures have come up with various myths and
legends about the aurora borealis, thus producing fairy
tales, a common interest of children.
Sieg] shares this interest of fairy tales, and the subject
she chose in Aurora depicts a theme related to her work as
an illustrator for children's books. Siegl's interest in children
was inherently natural in relation to her life; she and her
husband had seven boys and one girl. As the viewer sees in
Aurora, there are fictional and creative components in the
work, and "when working with children, an artist can
work freely and imaginatively."5
In Aurora, through composition, subject, and color,
Siegl has created a single focus point on the mystical animal
image, allowing for her to express her "personal magic."6
This work is more than just a way for Siegl to illustrate her
cleverness and artistic freedom, however; it is also a work
for her audience, who are welcomed into this fantasy land
of Aurora.
Anne C. Cabell
1"Plastcr13lock
Prints
of Helen
Sicgl,"A111erim11 Artis/
19
(September
1955):
42.
2 So111c//1i11g Abo111 the A ut!ior, 34 (Detroit: Gale Research, 1984), 25.
3Ua1nbi;:r Gascoigne, I-low 10 Jrle111ify Prints (NcwYork:Thames
and Hudson, Inc.,
1986),
5.
4Candace Savage, ;J11rom
(New York: Greysrone
Books,
1994),
4.
5Hclen Siegt, as quoted by joanna i::oster and Lee Kingman, lllnstmtors cf Cbiktrens
Books (Boston: Horn Book, 1968), xiv.
6Foster and Kingman ( l 968), xiv.
37
17
HELEN FRANKENTHALER
(B. 1928)
Tales of Genji V, 1998
48-color woodcut, stencil on rustTGL handmade paper, 42 x 47 in. (106.7 x
119.4 cm.)
Signed: l.r.: 34/36 Frankenthaler
Chop mark: interlocking geometrics (Tyler Graphics, Ltd.)
Promised Gift of Dr. Paul Kanev
Not previously exhibited
Published: Kenneth Tyler, Notes on Tales of Cenji brochure (Mt. Kisco, NY:
Tyler Graphics, 1998).
An 11th century Japanese court lady called Murasaki
Shikibu is credited with writing the world's first novel
called The Tales of Genji. The story, about the passionate
meanderings of an emperor's son in Heian,Japan, has
inspired artists since its conception.
Helen Frankenthaler's brand new series of prints are
highly influenced by the tale as well as the Japanese traditional printmaking processes which have historically told
the Tales of Genji. Frankenthaler's series of six prints
required 90 wood blocks, 231 colors and three years to
complete. To begin, Frankenthaler painted on wood panels
as models for the prints. Then she and her team of printers
hand made a thick, absorbent, colored cotton paper. The
artist sought pieces of wood with grains that struck her
aesthetically; these pieces of wood were then inked and
printed on special paper to study the grains.1
Frankenthaler had studied in the mid-1940s with
Rufino Tamayo at the Dalton School in New York. In 1950,
she met the critic Clement Greenburg, who did much to
promote her career; she made her presence known in the
art world at the age of 24, when her painting entitled
Mountains and Sea marked her as a pioneer of her generation.
At that time, she was closely associated with the Abstract
Expressionists. In 1958 she became permanently associated
with the school when she married the painter Robert
Motherwell. Her first one-artist show came in 1959 at the
Andre Emmerich Gallery in New York.s
Until 1961 Frankenthaler worked strictly in painting
and was an innovator in that field. Although she was an
Abstract Expressionist, her work went in a different direction from that of her contemporaries. Following in the
footsteps of Jackson Pollock, Frankenthaler pioneered new
techniques in abstract painting: instead of the traditional
brush and easel she laid raw, unsized canvas and paper on the
floor of her studio and poured pigment onto the surface,
eliminating the Expressionist painterly brushstroke. A
propensity toward experimentation was also revealed in
Frankenthaler's frequent incorporation of plaster, sand
and other materials in her paintings. The effect that the
new materials had on her paintings was the development
of monumental, serene images with multiple diaphanous
layers of color.'
38
In 1961, at the urging of several artist friends,
Frankenthaler reluctantly went to work in a New York
workshop called Universal Limited Art Editions. There
she began to experiment with printmaking. Initially,
Frankenthaler found printmaking's fragmented procedures
disorienting; a painter at heart, she sought to make prints
painterly+ But Frankenthaler was soon inspired to explore
the new medium's versatility. She first and foremost considers
herself a painter, but the language and process of printmaking
intrigues her; here the ukiyo-e style of Japanese printmaking is apparent in her strong calligraphic gesture and line.
Frankenthaler's art is about space via line, texture and
especially color. In this print, sweeping lines create the
effect of a Zen painting with the illusion that the color
continues indefinitely.
Prankenthaler's approach to printmaking is a ritual of
trial, with constant adding, changing and deleting: "I want
to draw my own images, mix my own colors, approve of
registration marks, select paper-all the considerations and
reconsiderations. Assuming that those who work in the
workshop are artists at what they do, I can then entrust the
actual duplicating process to other hands that possesshopefully-their kind of magic. Sharing and participating
to the end."5
With Tales of Cenji V, Frankenthaler has taken her
printmaking to a new level. The colors are rich and layered.
The effect of each of the 48 blocks used for this print can
be seen in the diaphanous layers of color, reminiscent of
her breakthrough paintings of the 1950s. There is a
remarkable sense of the artist's touch in the print, a quality
that is rarely accomplished in woodcuts. Here, Frankenthaler
has achieved her 30-year goal of creating a print which
captures the essence of painting through the process of
relief printmaking.
Patrick E. Smith
·1l<enneth
Tyler, Notes 011 Ttilesji'Ol11 Cenj! brochure
(Mt. Kisco, NY:Ty!cr
Graphics,
1998), n.p.
2Ruth Fine, Helen Fmnhenthnler: Prints cxh. cat. (Washington,
D.C.: National Gallery
of Art, 1993), '13.
3201/i-Cc;1/11ryAr1 Book (London:
Phaidon
Press Limited, 1996), 147.
4Judith Goldman, Al/lericnn Prints: Process and Proc!fs (New York: Whitney
Art, and Harper
SHelen
& Row, Publishers,
1982),
Prankeurhaler, "The Romance of Learning a New Medium
The Pri111 Collector" Newsletter ( 1977): 67.
Museum
85.
For An Artist,"
of
(c) copyright
Helen
Prankenthaler/Tylcr
Graphics Ltd., 1998
39
18
MARY BARRINGER
(B. 1950)
Baby Jar, 1982
Ceramic, 4 3/4 x 7 1/4 x 6 1/8 in. (12.1 x 184 x 15.5 cm.)
Signed: on bottom: Barringer
Purchased by The Trout Gallery, 87.33a, b
Not previously exhibited
Unpublished
Baby Jar belongs to an untitled series ranging from 20
to 30 pots. These pieces are hand-sized and curve under
themselves, exploring the way that the pots meet the
ground. These works do not stand the way that traditional
pots do; rather they roll and are rounded on the bottom,
giving the pots great depth but also personality. For the
series, Barringer was inspired by pre-Columbian sculpture
such as the West Mexican, Guatemalan, and Helisco figures.
These small sculptures are often seated and have either
both legs extended or just one, with the other limb curled
beneath the figure.
The title Baby Jar reflects the pot's identity as a jar but
it is also a reference to seated Guatemalan dolls.' Baby Jar's
two horizontal points resemble the limbs of the Guatemalan
dolls in that they protrude from the rounded base of the
jar-like legs. Baby Jar's base is curved so that it is very deep
and seems as if it would rock if pushed, the two points
extend from a cushion-like shape, which makes the jar
have an exciting relation to the ground, meeting it but
avoiding a heavy im.pact. The potential to roll also suggests
movement in a way that a heavy, flat base would not.
Barringer obtained her B.A. at Bennington College in
1962, then studied at the Pratt Institute from 1968 to 1969;
in 1971 she worked as an apprentice to Michael Frimkess.2
Barringer then established the Park Street Potters, which
was a studio as well as a shop. Her works are well-received,
especially in the New England area, where she is most well
known. She has taught extensively and has served as a visiting artist at museurn.s and universities.3
Barrinzer
was a student in the 1960s and, as such, was
b
taught in what she calls "the Leach and Cardew-soaked
system,"4 referring to these two artists' division between a
preoccupation
with the clay form versus an emphasis on
glaze, the transformation of m.inerals. For many years
Barringer felt that she lost control over the pot once it was
submitted to the kiln. She started experimenting with glaze
techniques in the 1970s and 1980s and discovered that she
could stay involved by working with various grounds and
slips, building them up towards a final product: "slips are
both the material and conceptual 'missing' link between
clay and glaze."The interactive process is very important to
her and she feels that slips experiment with, and essentially
allow for changes until the object enters the kiln.>
Baby Jar reveals this interest in process. The entire body
40
of the work is marked with short strokes resembling crosshatching. Within these marks are residues of brown slip.
Barringer wiped the pot after glazing it so that the natural
clay shows and the glaze is left only in the incised texture.
She made the glaze function as a part of the texture, and
thus as part of the pot. The glaze of the Baby Jar is not
separate from the formal identity of the clay pot; instead,
the glaze and the form complement each other.
The Baby Jar's form is closed because its walls reach
around the pot, leaving only a small opening on top, which
is covered with a separate lid. The work's form is strong yet
irregular. Although Baby Jar is related to functional ceramics
in that it is a vessel, the pot's main purpose is aesthetic: it
reads like sculpture, inviting the viewer to walk around and
view it from different angles, as its formal identity changes
with each view. When viewed from different angles, the
pot reveals various shapes. From one side, the shape looks
as if it is comprised of conical points of equal emphasis and
a perfectly curved back side. But when the pot is turned,
one of the points appears more dominant, pulling the pot
into a tear-drop shape. The lid echoes this form and points
in the same direction.
The pot as a whole is important because of the attention
that Barringer gave to even the obscure parts like the bottom.
The underside was textured, glazed and incised just as
carefully as more visible areas. Barringer emphasized certain aspects of the form by drawing two lines on the piece:
one is a large arch that is inscribed on the bottom, tracing
the pot's curve, and the other line starts from the pointed
side of the lid and extends down to the end of the dominant point. The second line draws attention to the direction
of the· form which moves towards the point. The two lines
emphasize the different forms that play in the pot, but at
the same time they also emphasize the pot's integrity.
In 1985, Barringer exhibited coil-built stoneware
vessels at the M.S. Gallery in Hartford. The Baby Jar is
consistent with the style of these works: it is coil-built and
also has had the same surface and slip treatment. These pots
were rubbed with dry Connecticut river-bank clay instead
of being glazed. After bisquing, the pots were sometimes
brushed with a slip which was also made from river clay.
The slip was then sponged and sprayed off with a Gerstley
borate wash, and fired to achieve a brown or grey earth-tone.6
Baby Jar is a beautiful work with a strong form and
interesting glaze; it is a good example of how Barringer
places em.phasis on process in every stage of_the pot's .
making. Baby Jar is still a functional pot, yet it works like
sculpture. It is at once a single object and form, but is also
a three-dimensional object with various shapes workmg
with it. The use of elements from pre-Columbian sculpture
cives the Baby Jar a shape and personality that are unique.
0
Lale Sylvia Ismen
l Interview, by phone, with Mary Barringer, on November 24, 1998.
2Mary Barringer, Curatorial files in The Trout Gallery (1987).
3Barringer it987).
4Mary Barringer, "Is Glaze Dead? Fourteen Ceramic Artists Give their Opinion on
the Subject,"
SBarringer
Studio Potter (December
1995): 24.
(1995), 24.
6"EmergingTalcnc," Ceramics J\llo11t'1ly (March '1985): 77.
41
19
TOSHIKO TAKAEZU (B. 1929)
Closed Form, 1983
Stoneware,
Signed: on
Gift of the
Exhibited:
9 3/8 in. diameter
bottom: 83 TT
Artist, 83.11
(23.9 cm.)
Toshiko Talzaezu: Ceramics, Textiles, and Bronzes:An Exhibition in
Celebration of the Dickinson College Arts Award Presentation (Carlisle, PA:The
Trout Gallery, 1983); Homage to Alumni and Friends: Recent Gifts to
Dickinson College's Fine Arts Collection (Carlisle, PA: The Trout Gallery,
1983); Ceramics from the Permanent Collection (Carlisle PA: The Trout
Gallery, 1991); A Decade of GirJing: The Trout Gallery, 1983-1993 (Carlisle,
PA:TheTrout Gallery, 1993).
Published: David Robertson, Homage to Alumni and Friends exh. cat. (Carlisle,
PA:The Trout Gallery, 1983), 4; David Robertson, A Decade of Giving exh.
cat. (Carlisle, PA:The Trout Gallery, 1993), 46.
This stoneware is a perfect example of what Toshiko
Takaezu is best known for making: closed forms. Her break
from the creation of utilitarian vessels culminated in the
1950s, allowing for a solely aesthetic appreciation of her
work.! "These forms-sensuous and bulbous, with only a
pinhole for an opening-have become some ofToshiko's
most symbolic works ... The poetic outside evokes the mystery of the inside, an aspect Toshiko considers an important
element of these works. Their dark interiors remain a secret
space."2 Indeed, most ofTakaezu's closed forms contain a
secret inside, a small ceramic bead that creates sound when
the object is moved. "Not only does the chiming suggest
and recall the interior of the vessel, from which the viewer
has been excluded, but more importantly it plants a seed of
potential connection between viewer and artist, for the act
of creation can be continued long after the artist's hand has
abandoned the object."3 The idea that the vessel continues
to "live" on its own, separate from the artist, can be further
enhanced by an iconographic reading of the form and surface of the object, which mingle harmoniously, together
producing an aesthetic, integral entity. The glazing has been
poured over the piece and fired in a kiln, taking advantage
of the natural effects of the chemical reactions that take
place. The outcome is random designs which suggest a natural landscape. The colors are dark and warm at the same
time: a sandy beige of the vessel, and a dark brown which
runs along the bottom and embraces the bulging sides. This
combination suggests a beach and rocky mountains or
earthly dunes, a reminder of the Hawaiian landscape in
which Takaezu grew up.
Takaezu was born in Pepeeko, Hawaii, to Japanese
immigrant parents who labored on a sugar plantation.
She grew up with limited financial resources, in a family
of eleven children. This atmosphere, combined with the
strong work ethic instilled by her parents and her culture,
is where Takaezu developed her creative and independent
attributes." Among her many awards, she received the
Dickinson College Arts Award in 1983.
42
As early as 1954, Takaezu was creating closed forms
ranging widely in size and pigmentation. The title of this
object, Closed Form, suggests something inside, and living;
indeed the object is so round that one can sense a pressure
from the inside as if it were breathing. The implication of
these qualities is that this is a representation of a vegetable
newly picked from a garden, which the artist has acknowledged as a major influence.> The significance of agriculture,
the planting and harvesting of crops, is personal to the
artist yet universal in importance.
There is a centuries-old tradition of celebrating the
harvest.> Takaezu's own Japanese heritage celebrates the
New Year with a festival of agricultural renewal, and the
honoring of time as cyclical." The glazing on Takaezu's
form is a simple contrast between light and dark which
can also be related to the seasons. Dark days are experienced in the winter months, and the bright days are in the
summer. The vegetable form ofTakaezu's object is a proud
symbol of her harvest, accumulated for the sustainment of
the winter months ahead.
This reading of the harvest in Takaezu's work is related
to another suggestion inherent in Closed Form: the concept
of the Goddess. The Goddess has been connected to nature
from as early as Paleolithic times, embodying a myth that
teaches all life is interrelated and sacred. 8 The earth has
always been referenced with the Goddess, such as The
Great Earth Mother Gaia (meaning 'earth'), who was
believed to have created the universe.9 Understanding the
concept of the Earth Mother/Goddess in relation to
Takaezu's work produces even greater significance to its
iconology. Not only is the vessel created from clay, a product of the earth, but its spherical shape further reverberates
to the cyclical nature and interconnectedness
of life, which
is concurrent to the mythological definition of the goddess.
In the video Portrait of an Artist, Takaezu states that she
feels an interrelatedness to all life, and in relation to the
production of her work:" ... You feel it [the overwhelming
beauty of nature], it gets in you, and it comes out in your
work." r o The experience of nature for Takaezu is not an
end in itself but a process involving inner transformation
which bezins
with the artist and continues in the viewer.
b
The tactile quality of the glaze, the roundness of the form
and the incorporation of sound all evoke an interaction
with the piece on the part of the viewer. Barry Targon,
writing for American Craft, has stated that "For an artist's
achievern.ent to reach across time and the shifting attitudes,
conventions and tastes of varying societies and cultures, it
must touch what we as human beings share and what does
. "11
not change. Such work must re 1 ease arc h etypa 1 energies.
In Takaezu's Closed Form, these energies are universally
understood in terms of mass, volume and shape which are
all signifiers to the cyclical nature of all life forces.
Krista Ann Mancini
1Sharon E. Lee, "The Art of'Ioshiko Takaeau," Toshiko Taleaezu : Fo11r Decades exh.
car. (Monrclair, NJ:The Montclair Art Museum, 1987), 15.
2Lee (1987), l 1
3"Toshiko Takaezu," Bulletin 87 (Philadelphia
4Patsy Sumie Sakai,
1993), ·116.
Museum of Art, Fall '1991):
Early Japanese /111wigmnts in Hawaii (Honolulu:
Ssusan Wallner and Nila Aronow, Toshiko Talmezu: Portrait
NJN Video, 1993), videocassette.
cf
(l!I
12-13.
Kisaku, lnc.,
Artist (Trenton:
6Jack Santino, Alf Around tlu: Year: Holidays anti Celebmtions i11 A111erica11 Life (Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1994), 142-143.
7Jteiko Mochinaga and Barbara B. Stephan; essays by Enbutsu Sumiko and Jan
Reader, Spirit and Svmbot.Tbe joponese New Year (Honolulu: Honolulu Academy of
the Arts, 1994), 88.
S"The main theme of the Goddess symbolism is the mystery of birth and death and
the renewal of life, not only human but all life on earth and indeed in the whole cosmos.
Symbols and images cluster around the parthenogeneric (self-generating)
Goddess
and her basic functions as Giver of Life, Wielder of Death, and, not less importantly, as
Regeneratrix, and around the Earth Mother, the Fertility Goddess young and old, rising
and dying with plant life." Marija Gimbatas, The Lang11age ef the Goddess (San Francisco:
Harper and Row Publisher, 1989), xix.
9Janet and Stewart Ferrar, The Wi1cl1es' Goddess: The Fe111ini11e Principle of Divinity
(Custer: Phoenix Publishing Company, 1994), 222.
10wallner and Aronow (1993).
11Barry Targon, "Toshiko Takaezu: Outer Quiet, Inner Force," A111erica11 Cmft 51
(February-March ·1991 ): 33.
43
•
The Trout Gallery receives. a portion of its general operating support from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, a federal agency serving the public by
strengthening museums and libraries. In addition, the Gallery is supported by The Helen E. Trout Memorial Fund and the Ruth Trout Endowment. Funding for
special projects is provided by the Henry D. Clarke,Jr. Foundation for the Arts.
This catalogue was generously underwritten by the Ruth Trout Endowment.