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HTMLText_164049CF_055F_7CBF_4180_46141BE86E32.html = For best functionality, please enable full-screen mode. You are using a beta version of this virtual tour. We welcome your feedback on how to improve user experience. We are working to make the tour accessible by keyboard navigation and to screen readers.
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Move through the exhibition by clicking on hot spots
Welcome to a Virtual Tour of
Women Take the Floor
This exhibition challenges the dominant history of 20th century American art by focusing on the overlooked and underrepresented work and stories of women artists. Take a virtual tour of the exhibition’s central gallery, “Women Depicting Women: Her Vision, Her Voice,” and preview the six other galleries.
Click on these links throughout the tour for additional content and educational resources based on audience.
Academic and Adult
Higher Education and Art Enthusiasts
K-12
Students and Educators
Family
Parents and Guardians with Kids
Find your location on the map
Click on this link throughout the tour to share your own thoughts and ideas.
Add Your Voice
How to Explore the Exhibition
Additional support from the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Exhibition Fund, and the Eugenie Prendergast Memorial Fund
WOMEN ON THE MOVE
ART AND DESIGN IN THE 1920S AND 30S
With the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, many women in the United States gained a voice at the ballot box. Yet many female artists and designers of the 1920s and 30s continued to find their aesthetic voices censored or restricted. Opportunities—especially in new fields like industrial design—were more scarce than those available to men, and prevailing assumptions held that “women’s art” should be somehow more “feminine” than that made by men. Women of color, largely excluded from the campaign for the vote, faced even greater challenges, as they confronted both racism and sexism in their pursuit of careers.
Still, the activism of the previous decades continued to advance social mobility and educational opportunities for women artists. New modes of transportation and communication enabled more women to travel further afield, seeking education and inspiration outside the domestic sphere and beyond their hometowns. Ruth Reeves received a Fulbright Scholarship that allowed her to study in Guatemala, while Meta Warrick Fuller, Loïs Mailou Jones, and Lola Cueto all traveled to Paris. Automobiles allowed other women to chart their own paths quite literally. Georgia O’Keeffe established a home in the Southwest and explored the region in her Model A Ford, while Maria Martinez’s black Dodge sedan—painted with striking designs by her husband and artistic partner—became a moving advertisement for the couple’s polished ceramics.
Other artists remained closer to home, although through their art, their voices carried beyond local boundaries. Nampeyo’s successful revival of ancient Hopi pottery designs improved the regional economy, while Helen Torr’s paintings earned her a national reputation—though not until long after her death.
We encourage you to explore some other highlights in the galleries using the links below.
Louise Bourgeois, American (born in France), 1911–2010
Pillar, 1949–50; cast in 1990
Hollow cast bronze, white and blue paint, stainless steel base
Gift of Michael J. Zinner, M.D.,
in loving memory of Rhonda Zinner, 2015
2015.3145
© 2020 The Easton Foundation
Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Katharine Lane Weems, American, 1899–1989
Striding Amazon
Revolt
Cast by: Tallix Foundry, Peekskill, New York
Modeled in 1926 and 1980; cast in 1981
Bronze, brown patina, lost wax cast
80.01 x 49.53 x 20.32 cm (31 1/2 x 19 1/2 x 8 in.)
Gift of Katharine Lane Weems
1981.664
Reproduced with permission.
Alice Neel, American, 1900–1984
Linda Nochlin and Daisy
1973
Oil on canvas
55 7/8 x 44 in. (141.9 x 111.8 cm)
Seth K. Sweetser Fund
1983.496
© The Estate of Alice Neel
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
Lorna Simpson, American, born in 1960
She
1992
Photograph, dye-diffusion photographs (Polaroid prints), and plaque
29 x 85 1/4 inches (73.6 x 216.5 cm)
Ellen Kelleran Gardner Fund
1992.204a-e
Reproduced with permission.
Wendy Red Star, Crow, born in 1981
Apsáalooke Feminist #1
2016
Photograph (exhibition print)
41 x 43 inches (image size), 42 x 55 inches (paper size)
Wendy Red Star
L-SE 1261.4.1
© Artist, Wendy Red Star
Rosalind Solomon, American, born in 1930
Mother and Daughter (Brighton Beach, New York)
Women, Matter, and Spirit
1985
Photograph, gelatin silver print
Image: 43.2 x 43.3 cm (17 x 17 1/16 in.)
Sheet: 60.7 x 51 cm (23 7/8 x 20 1/16 in.)
Promised gift of Jeanne and Richard S. Press
L-R 309.2015
Alice Neel, American, 1900–1984
Two Girls, Spanish Harlem
1959
Oil on canvas
Overall: 76.2 x 63.5 cm (30 x 25 in.)
Gift of Barbara Lee
2015.3331
© The Estate of Alice Neel
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
Cindy Sherman, American, born in 1954
Untitled #282
1993
Photograph, chromogenic print
91 3/16 x 61 1/8 inches (231.6 x 155.3 cm)
Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund
1993.687
Courtesy of the Artist and Metro Pictures Gallery
Loïs Mailou Jones, American, 1905–1998
Ubi Girl from Tai Region
1972
Acrylic on canvas
111.1 x 152.4 cm (43 3/4 x 60 in.)
The Hayden Collection—Charles Henry Hayden Fund
1974.410
© Lois Mailou Jones Pierre-Noel Trust
Amalia Pica, Argentinean, lives in London, born in 1978
Now Speak!
2011
Cast concrete, live performance
Overall: 151 x 101.8 x 81.2 cm, 544.32 kg (59 7/16 x 40 1/16 x 31 15/16 in., 1200 lb.)
Museum purchase with funds donated anonymously
2013.1829
Reproduced with permission
Sylvia Sleigh, 1916–2010
Rosemary Mayer
1978
Oil on canvas
Height x width: 91.4 × 61 cm (36 × 24 in.)
Gift of the Estate of Sylvia Sleigh
2019.492
Reproduced with permission
Genevive (Gene) Huston, American, 1907–1987
Woman in Yellow, 1940
Oil on canvas
Grant Walker Fund, 1984
1984.766
Reproduced with permission
Frida Kahlo, Mexican, 1907–1954
Dos mujeres (Salvadora y Herminia)
Two Women (Salvadora and Herminia),
1928
Oil on canvas
Charles H. Bayley Picture and Paintings Fund, William Francis Warden Fund, Sophie M. Friedman Fund, Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund, Tompkins Collection—Arthur Gordon Tompkins Fund, Gift of Jessie H. Wilkinson—Jessie H. Wilkinson Fund, and Robert M. Rosenberg Family Fund, 2015
2015.3130
© 2020 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F.
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Andrea Bowers, , American, founded in 1965
Trans Liberation: Building a Movement (Cece McDonald)
Archival pigment print
American, 2016
Framed: 243.2 x 150.5 x 5.7 cm (95 3/4 x 59 1/4 x 2 1/4 in.)
Towles Contemporary Art Fund
2016.235
© Andrea Bowers and Ada Tinnell
Lalla Assia Essaydi, Moroccan, born in 1956
Converging Territories #30
2004
Photograph
Framed: 85.4 × 103.2 × 3.2 cm (33 5/8 × 40 5/8 × 1 1/4 in.)
Collection of Susan B. Kaplan
L-SE 1261.15.1
Reproduced with permission
Patty Chang, American, born in 1972
American, 1998
Melons (At a Loss)
Video
Duration: 3 minutes, 44 seconds
The Heritage Fund for a Diverse Collection
2016.183
Courtesy of the artist
what is the suffrage movement to a blk womyn? an anthem
Porsha Olayiwola
ain’t nothing like power. ain’t
a gift greater than mourning
a failed defeat. remind me
again who i am: my mother’s
holy work, a girl the city spat
out, veins spilled with blood
& a ground unstained. if we
allow the land to rule the land
do we ever cease to live. if we
grant dominion to the body,
each act is a grace unearthed.
remind me again who i am:
flight bird, dark shining, cleaved
petal, bursting river, fable
unlearned. there is a story
where a president grows teeth
for hands. there is a tale
of a man who marches over
his wife & still reaches
the mountain peak. give me
the pen & eve devours
all the apples. pass me
the torch & the laws
burn to the ground.
hand me the brush, i reimagine
the gavel, the switch. i unsign
the declaration. i carve out
the beast, morph into the lion
answering the call. show me
an avenue not built on my back.
rocking chair & shotgun
guardian god be ida &
my skin, nina simone
i sing strange blues
i unsound the percussion
of my bones in your mouth
remind me again who i am:
woman child, breath’s
blossom, black dirt & hot sun,
the nap curled swooping up
at the edge of day, the wood
handle on the last obedient
knife. remind me again.
announce the title, loud.
say my name & i bring down
the wall. call me out & i blow
the ceiling cover. i wipe the worry,
wash history with a tongue
& we grin through the shout
& we dance all the graves away
& we live
& we live
& we live.
Porsha Olayiwola is Poet Laureate for the city of Boston. A writer, performer, educator, and curator, she wrote what is the suffrage movement to a blk womyn? for this exhibition. She also worked with MFA staff to envision the adjacent visitor response area.
Runtime: 3 minutes
BEYOND THE LOOM
FIBER AS SCULPTURE
In the 1960s and 70s, a number of pioneering women in America radically redefined textiles as modern art. Coopting a medium traditionally associated with women’s work and domesticity, these artists boldly broke free from the constraints of the loom to create large-scale, sculptural weavings that engaged with movements such as Minimalism and Abstraction. This “fiber revolution” sprang from a new philosophical emphasis on structure in textile art, as well as revived interest in tapestry weaving and the brilliance of ancient Peruvian textiles.
Some artists experimented with methods such as open warps, plaiting, wrapping, and knitting, expanding them in scale and space. In their hands, weaving became newly monumental and sculptural. Often, their dynamic works are composed of a single, monochrome fiber: sisal, rope, metal, monofilament, or wool. In 1981, art historian
Mildred Constantine and designer and author Jack Lenor Larsen noted the eloquence and power of this approach: “Like a single letter, a fiber has characteristics which may be sequenced towards an infinity of forms…”
We encourage you to explore some other highlights in the galleries using the links below.
WOMEN AND ABSTRACTION
AT MIDCENTURY
In the years before World War II, increased social and educational opportunities, in addition to the financial support provided to artists through the U.S. Works Progress Administration, offered greater numbers of women the chance to pursue careers in art. At the same time, the migration of scores of avant-garde European artists fleeing their homelands had brought radically new approaches to art to the United States and Latin America. Abstraction, or non-representational art, began to dominate the international art world. A variety of approaches to abstraction came to flourish in the Americas—embraced by many painters and sculptors, and influencing architecture and the crafts as well.
Following the war, mainstream American culture grew more conservative, and women artists faced even greater challenges as society tried to steer them toward marriage, family, and home life. Even women artists married to fellow artists sometimes found their voices muffled or subsumed by those of their male partners. Abstraction—with its roots in European liberalism and its embrace by leftist intellectuals—was often received skeptically by the public, and even those who supported it usually defined it in masculine terms. This gallery highlights some of the intrepid women who persevered in their pursuit of modern abstraction in painting, sculpture, printmaking, jewelry, ceramics, and furniture design.
We encourage you to explore some other highlights in the galleries using the links below.
Frida Kahlo
Mexican, 1907–1954
Dos mujeres (Salvadora y Herminia)
Two Women (Salvadora and Herminia), 1928
Oil on canvas
Jump into this painting and stand beside these two women. You are surrounded by green leaves, fruits, and butterflies. You hear a breeze blowing through the leaves. What other sounds do you hear? Can you smell the citrus fruit above your head? Imagine you are standing beside the woman in blue. What do you see in front of you?
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist who painted pictures of herself and the people around her. She painted this portrait of two women named Salvadora and Herminia, the “muchachas” or workers in her childhood home.
Frida Kahlo
Mexican, 1907–1954
Dos mujeres (Salvadora y Herminia)
Two Women (Salvadora and Herminia), 1928
Oil on canvas
At a time when modern Mexican art became nearly synonymous with murals—public, monumental, and painted by men—Kahlo filled canvases with radically intimate and political imagery. Here, she depicts Salvadora and Herminia, two working-class, mixed-race women, with all the dignity afforded to elite portrait sitters. She carefully highlighted the range of tones in the women’s faces and the contrasting colors of their clothing. Kahlo had originally painted them wearing aprons, but then chose to eliminate the detail that would mark them as muchachas, or domestic workers. In this early work, the first painting ever sold by the artist, Kahlo gazed at Salvadora and Herminia from her educated, middle-class perspective. However, her experiences with disability, cultural tensions within her family, and romantic relationships with both men and women would influence her artistic explorations of personal identities and social inequalities throughout her artistic career. One of the 20th century’s most influential sculptors, Bourgeois—like many of the artists featured on this floor—did not receive the recognition she deserved until late in life. Pillar belongs to a series of sculptures begun in the late 1940s and originally titled Personnages (French for “characters” or “figures”). According to Bourgeois, these works served as surrogates for people she had left behind: a “tangible way of re-creating a missed past.” Originally hewn in balsa wood, it was later recast in bronze and retitled Pillar, suggesting a newfound solidity and strength.
Charles H. Bayley Picture and Paintings Fund, William Francis Warden Fund, Sophie M. Friedman Fund, Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund, Tompkins Collection—Arthur Gordon Tompkins Fund, Gift of Jessie H. Wilkinson—Jessie H. Wilkinson Fund, and Robert M. Rosenberg Family Fund, 2015
2015.3130
© 2020 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F.
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Background Audio: The Lonely Palette podcast Ep. 40 - Frida Kahlo’s “Dos Mujeres (Salvadora y Herminia)”
Missing...
Patty Chang
American, born in 1972
Melons (At a Loss), 1998
Single-channel video (color, sound);
3 minutes 44 seconds, looped
Patty Chang explores themes such as language, gender, empathy, and femininity through videos and performances. Melons, according to Chang,
is a “performance juggling a narrative of an
imaginary cultural ritual.” On her head, the artist balances a plate loaded with symbolic ideals of female behavior: perfect posture, nourishment, saintly sacrifice, commemoration, and ultimately defiance. Chang boldly fills the plate with seeds scooped from a cantaloupe she cuts open at her breast—a visceral gesture matched by the descriptions in the tale she recites. “Melons is…based on images and script about my aunt’s death from breast cancer and the emotion void in my memory,” according to Chang. Read the full text of her performance nearby.
The Heritage Fund for a Diverse Collection, 2016
2016.183
Courtesy of the artist
Patty Chang
American, born in 1972
Melons (At a Loss), 1998
Single-channel video (color, sound);
3 minutes 44 seconds, looped
In the looping video, Chang recites this monologue:
When my aunt died, I got a plate. It was the kind of plate with a color photo printed on it in a poisonous ink that you couldn’t eat or else you’d die too. The original, which was made in a fine porcelain, was made back when my aunt and uncle got married—back in the days when black and white meant photos and color meant paint.
When she died, extras were ordered from Thrifty’s photo department. $10.99 for a saucer, $29.99 for dinner. I was given a saucer and I was told it was because I was smaller and more petite than everyone else, not because it was cheaper. It came in a small box wrapped in a dark olive paper, no silver curlicues, no bows and plastic flowers, just plain with a piece of tape on either end. And inside that box was a single saucer, minus the cup, and a redwood display stand. And on that saucer was an image of my aunt two years before she died with a smile so wide her eyes disappeared into hairline slits, almost erased into her skin. And she was just like Saint Lucy, Saint Lucy of Syracuse: eyeless, sightless, and carrying her baby blues on a platter. Two ripe round grapes like I’d put on a dish on Halloween when I was nine and I’d make my ten-year-old boyfriend put his fingers into it. And I’d tell him, “They’re my dog’s, can’t you tell? I pulled them out today just for you.” And right there on the spot, he’d confess his undying love to me.
She was power incarnate and I imagined that she could see into whatever room that she left her eyes. And I looked up to my plate just as Lucy did hers. I thought I understood all the powers that it held.
And whenever I was punished for not doing something I was told to, I would gently take that plate off of its redwood display stand, and lick that puppy ‘til her smile was erased.
Rosalind Solomon
American, born in 1930
Mother and Daughter (Brighton Beach, New York), from Women, Matter, and Spirit, 1985
Photograph, gelatin silver print
Photographer Rosalind Solomon did not begin taking photographs until the age of thirty-eight while doing volunteer work in Japan. Since then, she has used the camera as a political tool, capturing subjects such as individuals with AIDS, Cambodian land-mine victims, and people affected by the Vietnam War. By contrast, in Mother and Daughter (Brighton Beach, New York), Solomon captures an innocent moment of familial love. “I used the camera … to talk to myself and I discovered an inner voice,” Solomon has said. “I realized that I was putting my voice into pictures.”
Promised gift of Jeanne and Richard S. Press
L-R 309.2015
ROSALIND SOLOMON
American, born in 1930
Mother and Daughter (Brighton Beach, New York), from Women, Matter, and Spirit, 1985
Photograph, gelatin silver print
On a hot and bright day, mom and daughter make their way to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. Their faces are touching and the daughter looks out at the camera. What do you think she is feeling? The artist, Rosalind Solomon, likes to take photos that show strong emotions. What kind of feeling do you get when you look at this picture? What emotion would you like to show in a photo?
ALICE NEEL
American, 1900–1984
Two Girls, Spanish Harlem, 1959
Oil on canvas
Could you sit still for hours beside your sister, brother, or friend? The artist Alice Neel loved painting people, especially her family and friends. These sisters, Antonia and Carmen, were Alice’s neighbors. Pretend you are Alice’s next-door neighbor. How do you think it would feel to sit in one place for a long time while she painted you? Notice the ruby red in the dress and socks. What would you wear if you had a picture painted of you?
Andrea Bowers
American, born in 1965
Trans Liberation: Building a Movement (Cece McDonald), 2016
Photograph, archival pigment print
Andrea Bowers identifies as a feminist and a social activist and she uses her art to give visibility to under-discussed issues of resistance, inclusion, and justice. In this work, she draws upon slogans and imagery from past liberation and feminist movements to focus on “a fresh form of sisterhood between trans and nontrans women”—at a particular moment when transgender individuals (especially trans women of color) are subject to widespread discrimination and violence. Clad here as the avenging angel of liberty with wings and a hammer, CeCe McDonald is an African American bisexual transgender woman from Minneapolis who became a prominent LGBTQ activist after she defended herself and a friend from a transphobic attack outside a bar in 2011. In a ruling that sparked a wave of protests, McDonald was then sentenced to forty-one months in a men’s prison.
Towles Contemporary Art Fund, 2016
2016.235
© Andrea Bowers and Ada Tinnell
Loïs Mailou Jones
American, 1905–1998
Ubi Girl from Taï Region, 1972
Acrylic on canvas
Boston-born artist Loïs Mailou Jones portrays a self-possessed girl from the Taï Region of Côte d’Ivoire, her face painted for her initiation into womanhood. The artist mirrors the painted lines on the young woman’s face in red outline, and includes a Dan or Mano mask representing an idealized female spirit, bringing together multiple depictions of womanhood in a single work. For Jones, this painting symbolized a reclamation of her own African heritage, following a trip she took to the continent in her sixties.
After graduating from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Jones studied in Paris. There she felt “released…from all the pressure and stagnation” that Black artists confronted in the United States. Returning to Boston, she said: “I discovered that not only being Black, but being a woman created a double handicap for me to face.” Over the ensuing decades, as an acclaimed painter and esteemed professor at Howard University, Jones would pave the way for generations of female artists of color to follow.
The Hayden Collection—Charles Henry Hayden Fund, 1974
1974.410
© Lois Mailou Jones Pierre-Noel Trust
Alice Neel
American, 1900–1984
Linda Nochlin and Daisy, 1973
Oil on canvas
Neel was one of the 20th century’s foremost practitioners of figurative painting. Working from life, she created provocative and often disarmingly frank portraits of friends and acquaintances in her New York studio. Here she portrays the distinguished art historian Linda Nochlin—whose 1971 essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” remains a touchstone of feminist art history—and her daughter, Daisy.
At Neel’s invitation, Nochlin sat several times for this portrait; ultimately, the artist chose to depict her not as a writer but as a mother, and she captured the pair with her characteristic lush and vivid colors and free brushwork. For most of her career, Neel worked in obscurity, only receiving the acclaim of critics and curators when she was in her seventies.
Seth K. Sweetser Fund, 1983
1983.496
© The Estate of Alice Neel
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
Genevive (Gene) Huston
American, 1907–1987
Woman in Yellow, 1940
Oil on canvas
Gene Huston was born in Portland, Oregon but made her way to California in the 1920s.
An early student of the pioneering modern artist and educator Hans Hofmann, Huston went on to become a teacher in her own right and, during the Great Depression, created work for the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). An accomplished painter, Huston purposefully employed a simplified style that recalls both the early canvases of her then-partner Morris Louis and the 19th-century folk art portraits that many artists found inspiring in the 1920s and 30s.
Grant Walker Fund, 1984
1984.766
Reproduced with permission
Background Audio: The Lonely Palette podcast Ep. 44: Louise Bourgeois' "Pillar"
Missing...
Cindy Sherman
American, born in 1954
Untitled #282, 1993
Photograph, chromogenic print
One of the most acclaimed and influential photographers of her generation, Cindy Sherman uses her medium to explore the construction of contemporary female identity and female representation. Assuming the multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser, and stylist, Sherman creates pictures of herself in a wide range of costumes, borrowing looks from sexy centerfolds to Old Master portraits. Here she becomes Medusa, in a picture taken for the magazine Harper’s Bazaar. In Greek mythology, anyone who looked at hideous Medusa would turn to stone, and feminists have adopted the serpent-haired goddess as a symbol of outrage against patriarchy.
Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund, 1993
1993.687
Courtesy of the Artist and Metro Pictures Gallery
Wendy Red Star
American (Apsáalooke/Crow),
born in 1981
Apsáalooke Feminist #1, 2016
Photograph, inkjet print
“I don’t aim to do political work,” says artist Wendy Red Star, “but it becomes political
because it’s talking outside the colonial framework.” The photographs in Red Star’s Apsáalooke Feminist series are self-portraits taken together with the artist’s daughter and collaborator, Beatrice Red Star Fletcher. Vibrantly colorful, sometimes humorous, the photographs defy historical, sepia-toned representations of Native American women by ethnographic photographers. Here the two pose and gaze assertively into the camera, surrounded by bold patterns and wearing the traditional elk-tooth dress of the Apsáalooke (Crow) nation.
Wendy Red Star
L-SE 1261.4.1
© Artist, Wendy Red Star
Louise Bourgeois
American (born in France), 1911–2010
Pillar, 1949–50; cast in 1990
Hollow cast bronze, white and blue paint, stainless steel base
One of the 20th century’s most influential sculptors, Bourgeois—like many of the artists featured on this floor—did not receive the recognition she deserved until late in life. Pillar belongs to a series of sculptures begun in the late 1940s and originally titled Personnages (French for “characters” or “figures”). According to Bourgeois, these works served as surrogates for people she had left behind: a “tangible way of re-creating a missed past.” Originally hewn in balsa wood, it was later recast in bronze and retitled Pillar, suggesting a newfound solidity and strength.
Gift of Michael J. Zinner, M.D., in loving memory of Rhonda Zinner, 2015
2015.3145
© 2020 The Easton Foundation
Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Amalia Pica
Argentinean, born in 1978
Now Speak!, 2011
Cast concrete, live performance
“Now, Speak!” is Michelangelo’s legendary command, as he completed his exceptionally lifelike sculpture of Moses. Pica updates the quote as an invitation. Both physical object and symbolic platform, her lectern prompts expression, dialogue, and action. As she explains: “I am interested in what brings us together, and so communication and its difficulties are for me a sign of how much we need each other.”
All are welcome to make spontaneous declarations here. Pica also encourages us to deliver historic speeches—by individuals with different physical characteristics than our own. The artist believes that “offering another way of looking or thinking about something that feels personal or innocent is more likely to help us effectively find that common ground and stand together before we encounter the ideologies that divide us. ”
Museum purchase with funds donated anonymously, 2013
2013.1829
Reproduced with permission
Alice Neel
American, 1900–1984
Two Girls, Spanish Harlem, 1959
Oil on canvas
“Whether I’m painting or not, I have this overwhelming interest in humanity,” painter Alice Neel said. Born and raised in a predominantly white suburb of Philadelphia, Neel felt most at home in Harlem, where she lived and worked for more than forty years. A fixture in the community, Neel befriended and often painted her neighbors, including sisters Antonia and Carmen Encarnacion. In this expressive and tender double-portrait, the girls’ heavy heads echo each other; the loosely painted clothing and unelaborated background highlight the more carefully and sensitively rendered faces and hands.
Gift of Barbara Lee, 2015
2015.3331
© The Estate of Alice Neel
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
Sylvia Sleigh
American (born in Wales), 1916–2010
Rosemary Mayer, 1978
Oil on canvas
A realist painter, teacher, and gallerist, Sylvia Sleigh is best known for her feminist portraits in which she reversed stereotypical gender roles—presenting men in poses that recall famous images of women. From 1976–2007 she also created a series of portraits of influential feminist artists and cultural leaders, such as this one of Rosemary Mayer. A multi-media artist who worked in performance art and installations, Mayer was a founder of the A.I.R. (Artists in Residence) Gallery, the first all-female cooperative gallery in the United States, in 1972. Sleigh became a member of A.I.R. in 1974.
Gift of the Estate of Sylvia Sleigh, 2019
2019.492
Reproduced with permission
Katharine Lane Weems
American, 1899–1989
Striding Amazon, modeled in 1926;
revised 1980; cast in 1981
Bronze
Born into a socially prominent Boston family, Katharine Lane Weems graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and rose to prominence as a sculptor of keenly lifelike animals, their realism rooted in the artist’s studies from life at the Bronx Zoo. One of the few human figures Weems ever sculpted, Striding Amazon depicts a muscular female nude, intently posed with a rock in one hand and a look of anguish on her face. According to the artist, the figure—titled after the race of female warriors in Greek mythology—“dramatized the vexation women of her day felt toward the unfair tradition permitting only men to win honors for athletic daring and display.”
Gift of Katharine Lane Weems, 1981
1981.664
Reproduced with permission.
Lorna Simpson
American, born in 1960
“She,” 1949–50; 1992
Photograph, dye-diffusion (Polaroid) prints, and plaque
Simpson rose to prominence in the 1980s and 90s for works that tackle themes such as slavery, racism, beauty, and the human body. Her faceless portraits, as here, also undermine traditional notions of portraiture. In “She,” Simpson confronts expectations surrounding gender: the title and the plaque above the photographs may declare the sitter is “female,” but the tailored suit, hand gestures, and body language also suggest masculinity. Together, these details confront the complications of defining identity through stereotypical notions. “The construction of femininity is a construction, yes,” the artist has said, “but it can also be twisted and turned around in such a way that doesn’t necessarily mean it is pointing to the female body or male body in such a binary fashion.”
Ellen Kelleran Gardner Fund, 1992
1992.204a-e
Reproduced with permission.
Lalla Essaydi
Moroccan (active in the United States),
born in 1956
Converging Territories #30, 2004
Photograph, chromogenic print
Within Islam, calligraphy is a sacred (and typically male) art form. In her photographs, Essaydi associates it with women’s bodies to suggest the complexity of gender roles within Islamic cultures. Here, calligraphy fills the image: using henna dye, Essaydi applies it directly onto her models, their drapery, and their surroundings before she photographs the scene. These surroundings—constricted, undefined—also suggest the boundaries imposed upon women, including psychological confinement. “These women ‘speak’ through the language of femininity to each other and to the house of their confinement,” Essaydi has written of her Converging Territories series, “just as my photographs have enabled me to speak.”
Collection of Susan B. Kaplan
L-SE 1261.15.1
Reproduced with permission
WOMEN OF ACTION
“A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun—
an event first and only secondarily an image.”
Elaine de Kooning, 1959
Action painting, also called Abstract Expressionism or gestural abstraction, emerged in the late 1940s as a radical new direction in art. Action painters splashed, dripped, or poured paint on their canvases to create individual, energetic compositions that reflect the artist’s creative impulses and inner psyche. Artists working in this mode, most notably Jackson Pollock, were championed and promoted through the writings of two leading New York art critics, Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. The popular media seized upon the macho personalities of Pollock and his male contemporaries, often equating action painting and abstraction with masculinity.
At the same time, many women were forging careers as action painters—despite the chauvinist outlooks of art critics and postwar American society’s emphasis on traditional gender roles. Yet few of these women got the attention they deserved during their lifetimes. Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, and Toshiko Takaezu—whose works appear in this gallery—developed their own individual styles of action painting that influenced contemporaries and inspired later generations. Only now, as scholars take a new look at art of this era, are the extraordinary contributions of these artists, and of all women action painters, being duly recognized and celebrated.
We encourage you to explore some other highlights in the galleries using the links below.
"Women Take the Floor highlights the work of women-identifying artists working in the Americas over the past century. Through this experience, you can engage virtually with a selection of those works, as well as access educational tools for families and students of all ages.
This tour focuses on the central gallery of the exhibition, Women Depicting Women: Her Vision, Her Voice. You can also catch a glimpse into some of the other galleries. Curious about opportunities to dig deeper? Look for additional tools geared toward specific audiences, as well as opportunities to interact and add your voice to the exhibition. An explanation of these resources and how to find them are listed here on the right. See below for guidance on how to navigate the tour.
Academic and Adult Learners: Whether you're part of a college or university community, or hosting a book group or dinner club, find thought-provoking discussion prompts at this symbol.
Add Your Voice: Opportunities to share your thoughts and ideas are available at this symbol.
K-12: Teachers, parents, and students can find resources for engagement at this symbol.
Family labels: Families with children can find labels geared toward their needs at this symbol.
LOÏS MAILOU JONES
American, 1905–1998
Ubi Girl from Taï Region, 1972
Acrylic on canvas
Take a moment to look at the image. Where does your attention go first? The colors? The patterns? The figures?
Loïs Mailou Jones painted many subjects in many styles over the course of her long career. In this painting, Jones assembles images she found inspirational after a trip to many countries in Africa. She includes four faces in the painting: a sculpture from the Ivory Coast in profile, the portrait of a young Liberian woman, and the outline of two Congolese masks. Jones chose to paint each face in a different way. How does she make all of the different parts of the painting work together as one? What do you see in the picture that makes you say that?
Now focus on one figure: the face in the upper right hand corner of the painting. She is the only figure mentioned in the title of the painting, “Ubi Girl from the Tai Region.” Her face is painted for a ceremony that celebrates her initiation into womanhood. We can only see her face and her eyes are closed. What do you know about her? What more do you want to know about her?
Back up to look around the rest of the virtual gallery. What makes this work of art stand out from the others? The gallery includes work by women about women. Each artist chose different women and depicted them in a different way. How does Jones’ painting interact with the rest of the works of art displayed?
ROSALIND SOLOMON
American, born in 1930
Mother and Daughter (Brighton Beach, New York), from Women, Matter, and Spirit, 1985
Photograph, gelatin silver print
On a hot and bright day, mom and daughter make their way to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. Their faces are touching and the daughter looks out at the camera. What do you think she is feeling? The artist, Rosalind Solomon, likes to take photos that show strong emotions. What kind of feeling do you get when you look at this picture? What emotion would you like to show in a photo?
On a hot and bright day, mom and daughter make their way to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. Their faces are touching and the daughter looks out at the camera. What do you think she is feeling? The artist, Rosalind Solomon, likes to take photos that show strong emotions. What kind of feeling do you get when you look at this picture? What emotion would you like to show in a photo?
LOÏS MAILOU JONES
American, 1905–1998
Ubi Girl from Taï Region, 1972
Acrylic on canvas
Boston-born artist Loïs Mailou Jones portrays a self-possessed girl from the Taï Region of Côte d’Ivoire, her face painted for her initiation into womanhood. The artist mirrors the painted lines on the young woman’s face in red outline, and includes a Dan or Mano mask representing an idealized female spirit, bringing together multiple depictions of womanhood in a single work. For Jones, this painting symbolized a reclamation of her own African heritage, following a trip she took to the continent in her sixties.
After graduating from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Jones studied in Paris. There she felt “released…from all the pressure and stagnation” that Black artists confronted in the United States. Returning to Boston, she said: “I discovered that not only being Black, but being a woman created a double handicap for me to face.” Over the ensuing decades, as an acclaimed painter and esteemed professor at Howard University, Jones would pave the way for generations of female artists of color to follow.
Learning objectives:
•Develop skills of inquiry-based learning from close looking, communication, and critical thinking.
•Cultivate curricular associations that deepen content-based engagement with a range of academic disciplines.
1.Imagine you’ve been asked to describe this work to someone in an adjacent room with no visual access to the work. Spend a few minutes looking closely and describe what you see.
2.At first glance, what do you notice first about this work of art? How does your eye move through the composition? Are there areas that pull you in immediately? What clues direct that sense of movement?
3.Describe the colors you see. How does the artist’s use of vivid colors create a sense of dynamism throughout the work?
4.Consider how the artist has arranged this work. How might you describe the relationship between abstract patterns and the masks represented?
5.Look closely at the masks represented. What do you notice about the textures and forms in each? How are they rendered differently?
6.Jones often included African motifs in her work in celebration of her African heritage. Compare Jones’s approach to that of other artists such as Aaron Douglas, who draw upon aspects of African culture.
7.In this work, Jones draws inspiration from masks that refer to those of the Taï Region of Liberia, the Ivory Coast, and the Dominican Republic of Congo in Central Africa. Discuss the significance of these works in the context of this exhibition. In what ways do the masks relate to issues of personal and cultural identity?
8.Jones demonstrated an avid interest in drawing early in life and would go on to develop a prolific career as an artist and teacher in spite of the systemic challenges in place for African American artists working in the United States. Discuss the ways in which Jones, like many other African American artists, overcame barriers related to racism and gender-based exclusion.
9.Following the time she spent studying in Paris, Jones asserted, “I discovered that not only being Black, but being a woman created a double handicap for me to face.” In what ways does this statement relate to the concept of intersectionality in which the systematic exclusion of women must be understood in the context of marginalization and oppression of other groups and genders?
10.What questions does the work raise for you?
Amalia Pica
Argentinean, born in 1978
Now Speak!, 2011
Cast concrete, live performance
What do you do when you have something important to say? Does your posture change? Do you dress differently? Do you use a different voice? How do you get other people to listen?
Leaders around the world stand behind podiums when they make speeches. It sets them apart from other people in a room and commands attention. The artist Amalia Pica made this podium as an invitation for people to deliver their own declarations. How is a declaration or a speech different from everyday conversation?
This podium is made of concrete. It’s heavy and takes up space in the gallery. When someone stands on it, people notice. People don’t usually stand on works of art and other people wonder what the person is going to say or do. If you could speak from behind this podium, what would you say? Who would you want to be in the audience? What would you want people to know or do after they heard you speak?
The artist envisioned that people would deliver historic speeches from this artwork in addition to their own. She wanted people to give speeches written by people who were different from them. (You can see examples of some people doing this below). What happens to the meaning of the speech when it is spoken by someone else? Is there a speech you would want to give? Are there parts that mean something different coming from you than from the original speaker?
LOÏS MAILOU JONES
American, 1905–1998
Ubi Girl from Taï Region, 1972
Acrylic on canvas
Loïs Mailou Jones grew up in Boston, but traveled all over Africa. Look closely: how many faces can you find in this painting? The face that has white paint on it is a young woman from Côte d’Ivoire, a country in Africa. When a girl becomes a woman near the city of Taï, Côte d’Ivoire, she has her face painted as part of the celebration. Have you ever had your face painted for a special occasion?
CINDY SHERMAN
American, born in 1954
Untitled #282, 1993
Photograph, chromogenic print
One of the most acclaimed and influential photographers of her generation, Cindy Sherman uses her medium to explore the construction of contemporary female identity and female representation. Assuming multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser, and stylist, Sherman creates pictures of herself in a wide range of costumes, borrowing looks from sexy centerfolds to Old Master portraits. Here she becomes Medusa, in a picture taken for the magazine Harper’s Bazaar. In Greek mythology, anyone who looked at hideous Medusa would turn to stone, and feminists have adopted the serpent-haired goddess as a symbol of outrage against patriarchy.
Learning objectives:
•Develop skills of inquiry-based learning from close looking, communication, and critical thinking.
•Cultivate curricular associations that deepen content-based engagement with a range of academic disciplines.
1.Imagine you’ve been asked to describe this work to someone in an adjacent room with no visual access to the work. Spend a few minutes looking closely at the image and describe what you see.
2.How does the frame of the composition impact your interpretation? What do you imagine may exist outside the frame?
3.Notice the photographer’s downward positioned vantage point. What type of relationship does this establish between the viewer and the subject? How does it impact how you interpret this work in light of the notion of the female gaze?
4.How does your eye move through this composition? Are there areas that pull you in immediately? What clues direct that sense of movement?
5.What words would you use to describe the mood/feelings evoked by the photograph?What clues in the image suggest that particular mood or feeling?
6.Sherman often probes concepts of identity and in particular, notions of gender construction. What is the significance of Sherman’s use of the figure of Medusa?
7.Discuss the significance of Sherman’s adoption of multiple roles in the production of her work, from photographer and stylist to costume developer and sitter. How does this multiplicity of roles impact your understanding both of the work and the idea of gender as a social construct?
8.Why do you think Sherman chose to print this work at its dominating scale?
9.Select a figure from any culture’s mythology to represent your own thinking on gender identity. Who is that figure and how would you represent it, either in visual or written form?
10.What questions does the work raise for you?
The Lonely Palette Podcast Episode 46: Chang's Melons
Missing content...
For more information please contact
Makeeba McCreary
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
mmccreary@mfa.org
Virtual tour created by ikd office@i-k-design.com
Louise Bourgeois, American (born in France), 1911–2010
Pillar, 1949–50; cast in 1990
Hollow cast bronze, white and blue paint, stainless steel base
Gift of Michael J. Zinner, M.D.,
in loving memory of Rhonda Zinner, 2015
2015.3145
© 2020 The Easton Foundation
Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Katharine Lane Weems, American, 1899–1989
Striding Amazon
Revolt
Cast by: Tallix Foundry, Peekskill, New York
Modeled in 1926 and 1980; cast in 1981
Bronze, brown patina, lost wax cast
80.01 x 49.53 x 20.32 cm (31 1/2 x 19 1/2 x 8 in.)
Gift of Katharine Lane Weems
1981.664
Reproduced with permission.
Alice Neel, American, 1900–1984
Linda Nochlin and Daisy
1973
Oil on canvas
55 7/8 x 44 in. (141.9 x 111.8 cm)
Seth K. Sweetser Fund
1983.496
© The Estate of Alice Neel
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
Lorna Simpson, American, born in 1960
She
1992
Photograph, dye-diffusion photographs (Polaroid prints), and plaque
29 x 85 1/4 inches (73.6 x 216.5 cm)
Ellen Kelleran Gardner Fund
1992.204a-e
Reproduced with permission.
Wendy Red Star, Crow, born in 1981
Apsáalooke Feminist #1
2016
Photograph (exhibition print)
41 x 43 inches (image size), 42 x 55 inches (paper size)
Wendy Red Star
L-SE 1261.4.1
© Artist, Wendy Red Star
Rosalind Solomon, American, born in 1930
Mother and Daughter (Brighton Beach, New York)
Women, Matter, and Spirit
1985
Photograph, gelatin silver print
Image: 43.2 x 43.3 cm (17 x 17 1/16 in.)
Sheet: 60.7 x 51 cm (23 7/8 x 20 1/16 in.)
Promised gift of Jeanne and Richard S. Press
L-R 309.2015
Alice Neel, American, 1900–1984
Two Girls, Spanish Harlem
1959
Oil on canvas
Overall: 76.2 x 63.5 cm (30 x 25 in.)
Gift of Barbara Lee
2015.3331
© The Estate of Alice Neel
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
Cindy Sherman, American, born in 1954
Untitled #282
1993
Photograph, chromogenic print
91 3/16 x 61 1/8 inches (231.6 x 155.3 cm)
Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund
1993.687
Courtesy of the Artist and Metro Pictures Gallery
Loïs Mailou Jones, American, 1905–1998
Ubi Girl from Tai Region
1972
Acrylic on canvas
111.1 x 152.4 cm (43 3/4 x 60 in.)
The Hayden Collection—Charles Henry Hayden Fund
1974.410
© Lois Mailou Jones Pierre-Noel Trust
Amalia Pica, Argentinean, lives in London, born in 1978
Now Speak!
2011
Cast concrete, live performance
Overall: 151 x 101.8 x 81.2 cm, 544.32 kg (59 7/16 x 40 1/16 x 31 15/16 in., 1200 lb.)
Museum purchase with funds donated anonymously
2013.1829
Reproduced with permission
Sylvia Sleigh, 1916–2010
Rosemary Mayer
1978
Oil on canvas
Height x width: 91.4 × 61 cm (36 × 24 in.)
Gift of the Estate of Sylvia Sleigh
2019.492
Reproduced with permission
Genevive (Gene) Huston, American, 1907–1987
Woman in Yellow, 1940
Oil on canvas
Grant Walker Fund, 1984
1984.766
Reproduced with permission
Frida Kahlo, Mexican, 1907–1954
Dos mujeres (Salvadora y Herminia)
Two Women (Salvadora and Herminia),
1928
Oil on canvas
Charles H. Bayley Picture and Paintings Fund, William Francis Warden Fund, Sophie M. Friedman Fund, Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund, Tompkins Collection—Arthur Gordon Tompkins Fund, Gift of Jessie H. Wilkinson—Jessie H. Wilkinson Fund, and Robert M. Rosenberg Family Fund, 2015
2015.3130
© 2020 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F.
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Andrea Bowers, , American, founded in 1965
Trans Liberation: Building a Movement (Cece McDonald)
Archival pigment print
American, 2016
Framed: 243.2 x 150.5 x 5.7 cm (95 3/4 x 59 1/4 x 2 1/4 in.)
Towles Contemporary Art Fund
2016.235
© Andrea Bowers and Ada Tinnell
Lalla Assia Essaydi, Moroccan, born in 1956
Converging Territories #30
2004
Photograph
Framed: 85.4 × 103.2 × 3.2 cm (33 5/8 × 40 5/8 × 1 1/4 in.)
Collection of Susan B. Kaplan
L-SE 1261.15.1
Reproduced with permission
Patty Chang, American, born in 1972
American, 1998
Melons (At a Loss)
Video
Duration: 3 minutes, 44 seconds
The Heritage Fund for a Diverse Collection
2016.183
Courtesy of the artist
For more information please contact
Makeeba McCreary
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
mmccreary@mfa.org
Virtual tour created by ikd office@i-k-design.com
Louise Bourgeois
American (born in France), 1911–2010
Pillar, 1949–50; cast in 1990
Hollow cast bronze, white and blue paint, stainless steel base
One of the 20th century’s most influential sculptors, Bourgeois—like many of the artists featured on this floor—did not receive the recognition she deserved until late in life. Pillar belongs to a series of sculptures begun in the late 1940s and originally titled Personnages (French for “characters” or “figures”). According to Bourgeois, these works served as surrogates for people she had left behind: a “tangible way of re-creating a missed past.” Originally hewn in balsa wood, it was later recast in bronze and retitled Pillar, suggesting a newfound solidity and strength.
Gift of Michael J. Zinner, M.D., in loving memory of Rhonda Zinner, 2015
2015.3145
© 2020 The Easton Foundation
Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
what is the suffrage movement to a blk womyn? an anthem
Porsha Olayiwola
ain’t nothing like power. ain’t
a gift greater than mourning
a failed defeat. remind me
again who i am: my mother’s
holy work, a girl the city spat
out, veins spilled with blood
& a ground unstained. if we
allow the land to rule the land
do we ever cease to live. if we
grant dominion to the body,
each act is a grace unearthed.
remind me again who i am:
flight bird, dark shining, cleaved
petal, bursting river, fable
unlearned. there is a story
where a president grows teeth
for hands. there is a tale
of a man who marches over
his wife & still reaches
the mountain peak. give me
the pen & eve devours
all the apples. pass me
the torch & the laws
burn to the ground.
hand me the brush, i reimagine
the gavel, the switch. i unsign
the declaration. i carve out
the beast, morph into the lion
answering the call. show me
an avenue not built on my back.
rocking chair & shotgun
guardian god be ida &
my skin, nina simone
i sing strange blues
i unsound the percussion
of my bones in your mouth
remind me again who i am:
woman child, breath’s
blossom, black dirt & hot sun,
the nap curled swooping up
at the edge of day, the wood
handle on the last obedient
knife. remind me again.
announce the title, loud.
say my name & i bring down
the wall. call me out & i blow
the ceiling cover. i wipe the worry,
wash history with a tongue
& we grin through the shout
& we dance all the graves away
& we live
& we live
& we live.
Rosalind Solomon
American, born in 1930
Mother and Daughter (Brighton Beach, New York), from Women, Matter, and Spirit, 1985
Photograph, gelatin silver print
Photographer Rosalind Solomon did not begin taking photographs until the age of thirty-eight while doing volunteer work in Japan. Since then, she has used the camera as a political tool, capturing subjects such as individuals with AIDS, Cambodian land-mine victims, and people affected by the Vietnam War. By contrast, in Mother and Daughter (Brighton Beach, New York), Solomon captures an innocent moment of familial love. “I used the camera … to talk to myself and I discovered an inner voice,” Solomon has said. “I realized that I was putting my voice into pictures.”
Promised gift of Jeanne and Richard S. Press
L-R 309.2015
Porsha Olayiwola is Poet Laureate for the city of Boston. A writer, performer, educator, and curator, she wrote what is the suffrage movement to a blk womyn? for this exhibition. She also worked with MFA staff to envision the adjacent visitor response area.
Runtime: 3 minutes
THIS IS A BETA VERSION OF THE VIRTUAL TOUR. ADA COMPLIANCE WILL BE IN PLACE BY NOVEMBER 2020.
ENABLE FULL SCREEN FOR BEST EXPERIENCE.
Additional support from the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Exhibition Fund, and the Eugenie Prendergast Memorial Fund.
Can you name five women artists?
This seemingly simple question went viral on social media several years ago. In truth, most people cannot name five women artists—or, even if they can, it takes them significantly longer than naming five male artists.
According to the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.:
• Nearly 46% of visual artists in the United States identify as women
• Women artists earn 76-cents for every dollar made by male artists
• One recent survey showed that only 13% of artists represented in major U.S. museum collections are female
• Less than 4% of art sold at auction is made by women
• The most recent edition of the standard art history text Basic History of Western Art by H.W. Janson includes 27 women artists and 291 male artists
Women Artists at the MFA
For this exhibition, we’ve drawn objects primarily from the MFA’s existing collections of art from the Americas and organized them into focused, thematic galleries. Our collection’s strengths lie in the first 50 years of this project’s span (1920–70), and our displays here concentrate on that period. The gaps in our collection are as telling as the strengths—and they provide insight both into past taste and discrimination, as well as potential paths to take our collection forward.
We’ve made some strides in the past decade, but the MFA has significant work to do towards representing women artists with parity and with ongoing considerations of intersectionality.
• Over the past ten years, the Museum has acquired more than 3,800 works of art by known female-identifying artists. However, this represents less than 5% of all acquisitions during the same period.
• A recent survey measuring diversity across eighteen major American museums found that just over 8% of the MFA’s total collection is work made by women artists. Notably, this percentage does not account for works by many unidentified artists throughout history—especially weavers, embroiderers, potters, and otherartisans—who were almost certainly female.
• Of all single-artist exhibitions in the past decade, approximately 30% (33) have been dedicated to women artists, about one-third of whom were women artists of color. By contrast, from 1998 to 2008, we staged just twelve solo shows dedicated to women artists.
• Out of the nine solo exhibitions of women artists planned for 2019, four feature women artists of color.
• A reinstallation of selections from our collection of contemporary art, opening in Fall 2019 in the Linde Family Wing, represents a strong balance of female and male artists.
WOMEN OF ACTION
“A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun—
an event first and only secondarily an image.”
Elaine de Kooning, 1959
Action painting, also called Abstract Expressionism or gestural abstraction, emerged in the late 1940s as a radical new direction in art. Action painters splashed, dripped, or poured paint on their canvases to create individual, energetic compositions that reflect the artist’s creative impulses and inner psyche. Artists working in this mode, most notably Jackson Pollock, were championed and promoted through the writings of two leading New York art critics, Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. The popular media seized upon the macho personalities of Pollock and his male contemporaries, often equating action painting and abstraction with masculinity.
At the same time, many women were forging careers as action painters—despite the chauvinist outlooks of art critics and postwar American society’s emphasis on traditional gender roles. Yet few of these women got the attention they deserved during their lifetimes. Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, and Toshiko Takaezu—whose works appear in this gallery—developed their own individual styles of action painting that influenced contemporaries and inspired later generations. Only now, as scholars take a new look at art of this era, are the extraordinary contributions of these artists, and of all women action painters, being duly recognized and celebrated.
We encourage you to explore some other highlights in the galleries using the links below.
FOR CENTURIES, women artists have struggled to pursue their dreams and to receive recognition for their accomplishments. Despite more than a century of feminist activism and great strides towards social, professional, and political equality, women remain dramatically underrepresented and undervalued in the art world today.*
This is not because great women artists did not exist—they did, and they do. Rather, it is the result of systemic gender discrimination in museums, galleries, the academy, and the marketplace, past and present. The MFA itself has had an inconsistent history in supporting women artists. We acknowledge that fact and seek to remedy it.
Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving American women the right to vote, we are dedicating this entire floor to work by women-identified artists active in the Americas during the last century. Through this “takeover,” we hope to challenge the dominant history of art from 1920 to 2020, shine a light on some of the many talented and determined women artists who so deserve our attention, and create a platform for further discussions on how to continue these efforts. At the MFA, we do not see this project as an end, but as a catalyst for greater reform. We hope you will add your voice and help us to make meaningful change.
WOMEN AND ABSTRACTION
AT MIDCENTURY
In the years before World War II, increased social and educational opportunities, in addition to the financial support provided to artists through the U.S. Works Progress Administration, offered greater numbers of women the chance to pursue careers in art. At the same time, the migration of scores of avant-garde European artists fleeing their homelands had brought radically new approaches to art to the United States and Latin America. Abstraction, or non-representational art, began to dominate the international art world. A variety of approaches to abstraction came to flourish in the Americas—embraced by many painters and sculptors, and influencing architecture and the crafts as well.
Following the war, mainstream American culture grew more conservative, and women artists faced even greater challenges as society tried to steer them toward marriage, family, and home life. Even women artists married to fellow artists sometimes found their voices muffled or subsumed by those of their male partners. Abstraction—with its roots in European liberalism and its embrace by leftist intellectuals—was often received skeptically by the public, and even those who supported it usually defined it in masculine terms. This gallery highlights some of the intrepid women who persevered in their pursuit of modern abstraction in painting, sculpture, printmaking, jewelry, ceramics, and furniture design.
We encourage you to explore some other highlights in the galleries using the links below.
BEYOND THE LOOM
FIBER AS SCULPTURE
In the 1960s and 70s, a number of pioneering women in America radically redefined textiles as modern art. Coopting a medium traditionally associated with women’s work and domesticity, these artists boldly broke free from the constraints of the loom to create large-scale, sculptural weavings that engaged with movements such as Minimalism and Abstraction. This “fiber revolution” sprang from a new philosophical emphasis on structure in textile art, as well as revived interest in tapestry weaving and the brilliance of ancient Peruvian textiles.
Some artists experimented with methods such as open warps, plaiting, wrapping, and knitting, expanding them in scale and space. In their hands, weaving became newly monumental and sculptural. Often, their dynamic works are composed of a single, monochrome fiber: sisal, rope, metal, monofilament, or wool. In 1981, art historian
Mildred Constantine and designer and author Jack Lenor Larsen noted the eloquence and power of this approach: “Like a single letter, a fiber has characteristics which may be sequenced towards an infinity of forms…”
We encourage you to explore some other highlights in the galleries using the links below.
FOR CENTURIES, women artists have struggled to pursue their dreams and to receive recognition for their accomplishments. Despite more than a century of feminist activism and great strides towards social, professional, and political equality, women remain dramatically underrepresented and undervalued in the art world today.*
This is not because great women artists did not exist—they did, and they do. Rather, it is the result of systemic gender discrimination in museums, galleries, the academy, and the marketplace, past and present. The MFA itself has had an inconsistent history in supporting women artists. We acknowledge that fact and seek to remedy it.
Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving American women the right to vote, we are dedicating this entire floor to work by women-identified artists active in the Americas during the last century. Through this “takeover,” we hope to challenge the dominant history of art from 1920 to 2020, shine a light on some of the many talented and determined women artists who so deserve our attention, and create a platform for further discussions on how to continue these efforts. At the MFA, we do not see this project as an end, but as a catalyst for greater reform. We hope you will add your voice and help us to make meaningful change.
WOMEN ON THE MOVE
ART AND DESIGN IN THE 1920S AND 30S
With the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, many women in the United States gained a voice at the ballot box. Yet many female artists and designers of the 1920s and 30s continued to find their aesthetic voices censored or restricted. Opportunities—especially in new fields like industrial design—were more scarce than those available to men, and prevailing assumptions held that “women’s art” should be somehow more “feminine” than that made by men. Women of color, largely excluded from the campaign for the vote, faced even greater challenges, as they confronted both racism and sexism in their pursuit of careers.
Still, the activism of the previous decades continued to advance social mobility and educational opportunities for women artists. New modes of transportation and communication enabled more women to travel further afield, seeking education and inspiration outside the domestic sphere and beyond their hometowns. Ruth Reeves received a Fulbright Scholarship that allowed her to study in Guatemala, while Meta Warrick Fuller, Loïs Mailou Jones, and Lola Cueto all traveled to Paris. Automobiles allowed other women to chart their own paths quite literally. Georgia O’Keeffe established a home in the Southwest and explored the region in her Model A Ford, while Maria Martinez’s black Dodge sedan—painted with striking designs by her husband and artistic partner—became a moving advertisement for the couple’s polished ceramics.
Other artists remained closer to home, although through their art, their voices carried beyond local boundaries. Nampeyo’s successful revival of ancient Hopi pottery designs improved the regional economy, while Helen Torr’s paintings earned her a national reputation—though not until long after her death.
We encourage you to explore some other highlights in the galleries using the links below.
Can you name five women artists?
This seemingly simple question went viral on social media several years ago. In truth, most people cannot name five women artists—or, even if they can, it takes them significantly longer than naming five male artists.
According to the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.:
• Nearly 46% of visual artists in the United States identify as women
• Women artists earn 76-cents for every dollar made by male artists
• One recent survey showed that only 13% of artists represented in major U.S. museum collections are female
• Less than 4% of art sold at auction is made by women
• The most recent edition of the standard art history text Basic History of Western Art by H.W. Janson includes 27 women artists and 291 male artists
Women Artists at the MFA
For this exhibition, we’ve drawn objects primarily from the MFA’s existing collections of art from the Americas and organized them into focused, thematic galleries. Our collection’s strengths lie in the first 50 years of this project’s span (1920–70), and our displays here concentrate on that period. The gaps in our collection are as telling as the strengths—and they provide insight both into past taste and discrimination, as well as potential paths to take our collection forward.
We’ve made some strides in the past decade, but the MFA has significant work to do towards representing women artists with parity and with ongoing considerations of intersectionality.
• Over the past ten years, the Museum has acquired more than 3,800 works of art by known female-identifying artists. However, this represents less than 5% of all acquisitions during the same period.
• A recent survey measuring diversity across eighteen major American museums found that just over 8% of the MFA’s total collection is work made by women artists. Notably, this percentage does not account for works by many unidentified artists throughout history—especially weavers, embroiderers, potters, and other artisans—who were almost certainly female.
• Of all single-artist exhibitions in the past decade, approximately 30% (33) have been dedicated to women artists, about one-third of whom were women artists of color. By contrast, from 1998 to 2008, we staged just twelve solo shows dedicated to women artists.
• Out of the nine solo exhibitions of women artists planned for 2019, four feature women artists of color.
• A reinstallation of selections from our collection of contemporary art, opening in Fall 2019 in the Linde Family Wing, represents a strong balance of female and male artists.
HER VISION, HER VOICE
Art, like suffrage, can be a powerful tool for expressing one’s voice in the community and the world. In marking the centennial of the 19th Amendment granting American women suffrage, we recognize that past feminist movements, including the campaign for the vote, were not inclusive or immune from systemic racism. This installation seeks to redress that imbalance, recognizing the contributions of women-identified artists of color of the past and present, who have confronted racism in addition to gender discrimination. Despite the limitations of our current collection, we strive to be more inclusive in the voices that we present. We still have a long way to go.
In this gallery, we bring together images of women created by women over the course of nearly a century. Together, they hint at the diversity of approaches that women have taken in representing themselves and one another. Some of the works are rooted in social practice and activism, others in political commentary. Some privilege the story of the sitter, while others emphasize the voice of the artist herself. All of these portraits reflect the multiplicity and power of the female gaze: the gaze of the artist, the gaze of the sitter—and now, the gaze of many viewers. How do these perspectives differ? Which of these portraits speaks most strongly to you?
Additional support from the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Exhibition Fund,
and the Eugenie Prendergast Memorial Fund.
Additional support from the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Exhibition Fund,
and the Eugenie Prendergast Memorial Fund.
WOMEN
DEPICTING WOMEN
HER VISION, HER VOICE
Art, like suffrage, can be a powerful tool for expressing one’s voice in the community and the world. In marking the centennial of the 19th Amendment granting American women suffrage, we recognize that past feminist movements, including the campaign for the vote, were not inclusive or immune from systemic racism. This installation seeks to redress that imbalance, recognizing the contributions of women-identified artists of color of the past and present, who have confronted racism in addition to gender discrimination. Despite the limitations of our current collection, we strive to be more inclusive in the voices that we present. We still have a long way to go.
In this gallery, we bring together images of women created by women over the course of nearly a century. Together, they hint at the diversity of approaches that women have taken in representing themselves and one another. Some of the works are rooted in social practice and activism, others in political commentary. Some privilege the story of the sitter, while others emphasize the voice of the artist herself. All of these portraits reflect the multiplicity and power of the female gaze: the gaze of the artist, the gaze of the sitter—and now, the gaze of many viewers. How do these perspectives differ? Which of these portraits speaks most strongly to you?
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Academic and Adult Learners: Whether you're part of a college or university community, or hosting a book group or dinner club, find thought-provoking discussion prompts at this symbol.
LOÏS MAILOU JONES
American, 1905–1998
Ubi Girl from Taï Region, 1972
Acrylic on canvas
Take a moment to look at the image. Where does your attention go first? The colors? The patterns? The figures?
Loïs Mailou Jones painted many subjects in many styles over the course of her long career. In this painting, Jones assembles images she found inspirational after a trip to many countries in Africa. She includes four faces in the painting: a sculpture from the Ivory Coast in profile, the portrait of a young Liberian woman, and the outline of two Congolese masks. Jones chose to paint each face in a different way. How does she make all of the different parts of the painting work together as one? What do you see in the picture that makes you say that?
Now focus on one figure: the face in the upper right hand corner of the painting. She is the only figure mentioned in the title of the painting, “Ubi Girl from the Tai Region.” Her face is painted for a ceremony that celebrates her initiation into womanhood. We can only see her face and her eyes are closed. What do you know about her? What more do you want to know about her?
Back up to look around the rest of the virtual gallery. What makes this work of art stand out from the others? The gallery includes work by women about women. Each artist chose different women and depicted them in a different way. How does Jones’ painting interact with the rest of the works of art displayed?
Cindy Sherman
American, born in 1954
Untitled #282, 1993
Photograph, chromogenic print
One of the most acclaimed and influential photographers of her generation, Cindy Sherman uses her medium to explore the construction of contemporary female identity and female representation. Assuming the multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser, and stylist, Sherman creates pictures of herself in a wide range of costumes, borrowing looks from sexy centerfolds to Old Master portraits. Here she becomes Medusa, in a picture taken for the magazine Harper’s Bazaar. In Greek mythology, anyone who looked at hideous Medusa would turn to stone, and feminists have adopted the serpent-haired goddess as a symbol of outrage against patriarchy.
Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund, 1993
1993.687
Courtesy of the Artist and Metro Pictures Gallery
CINDY SHERMAN
American, born in 1954
Untitled #282, 1993
Photograph, chromogenic print
One of the most acclaimed and influential photographers of her generation, Cindy Sherman uses her medium to explore the construction of contemporary female identity and female representation. Assuming multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser, and stylist, Sherman creates pictures of herself in a wide range of costumes, borrowing looks from sexy centerfolds to Old Master portraits. Here she becomes Medusa, in a picture taken for the magazine Harper’s Bazaar. In Greek mythology, anyone who looked at hideous Medusa would turn to stone, and feminists have adopted the serpent-haired goddess as a symbol of outrage against patriarchy.
Learning objectives:
•Develop skills of inquiry-based learning from close looking, communication, and critical thinking.
•Cultivate curricular associations that deepen content-based engagement with a range of academic disciplines.
1.Imagine you’ve been asked to describe this work to someone in an adjacent room with no visual access to the work. Spend a few minutes looking closely at the image and describe what you see.
2.How does the frame of the composition impact your interpretation? What do you imagine may exist outside the frame?
3.Notice the photographer’s downward positioned vantage point. What type of relationship does this establish between the viewer and the subject? How does it impact how you interpret this work in light of the notion of the female gaze?
4.How does your eye move through this composition? Are there areas that pull you in immediately? What clues direct that sense of movement?
5.What words would you use to describe the mood/feelings evoked by the photograph?What clues in the image suggest that particular mood or feeling?
6.Sherman often probes concepts of identity and in particular, notions of gender construction. What is the significance of Sherman’s use of the figure of Medusa?
7.Discuss the significance of Sherman’s adoption of multiple roles in the production of her work, from photographer and stylist to costume developer and sitter. How does this multiplicity of roles impact your understanding both of the work and the idea of gender as a social construct?
8.Why do you think Sherman chose to print this work at its dominating scale?
9.Select a figure from any culture’s mythology to represent your own thinking on gender identity. Who is that figure and how would you represent it, either in visual or written form?
10.What questions does the work raise for you?
ALICE NEEL
American, 1900–1984
Two Girls, Spanish Harlem, 1959
Oil on canvas
Could you sit still for hours beside your sister, brother, or friend? The artist Alice Neel loved painting people, especially her family and friends. These sisters, Antonia and Carmen, were Alice’s neighbors. Pretend you are Alice’s next-door neighbor. How do you think it would feel to sit in one place for a long time while she painted you? Notice the ruby red in the dress and socks. What would you wear if you had a picture painted of you?
Alice Neel
American, 1900–1984
Two Girls, Spanish Harlem, 1959
Oil on canvas
“Whether I’m painting or not, I have this overwhelming interest in humanity,” painter Alice Neel said. Born and raised in a predominantly white suburb of Philadelphia, Neel felt most at home in Harlem, where she lived and worked for more than forty years. A fixture in the community, Neel befriended and often painted her neighbors, including sisters Antonia and Carmen Encarnacion. In this expressive and tender double-portrait, the girls’ heavy heads echo each other; the loosely painted clothing and unelaborated background highlight the more carefully and sensitively rendered faces and hands.
Gift of Barbara Lee, 2015
2015.3331
© The Estate of Alice Neel
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
Wendy Red Star
American (Apsáalooke/Crow),
born in 1981
Apsáalooke Feminist #1, 2016
Photograph, inkjet print
“I don’t aim to do political work,” says artist Wendy Red Star, “but it becomes political
because it’s talking outside the colonial framework.” The photographs in Red Star’s Apsáalooke Feminist series are self-portraits taken together with the artist’s daughter and collaborator, Beatrice Red Star Fletcher. Vibrantly colorful, sometimes humorous, the photographs defy historical, sepia-toned representations of Native American women by ethnographic photographers. Here the two pose and gaze assertively into the camera, surrounded by bold patterns and wearing the traditional elk-tooth dress of the Apsáalooke (Crow) nation.
Wendy Red Star
L-SE 1261.4.1
© Artist, Wendy Red Star
THIS IS A BETA VERSION OF THE VIRTUAL TOUR.
ADA COMPLIANCE WILL BE IN PLACE BY NOVEMBER 2020.
THIS IS A BETA VERSION OF THE VIRTUAL TOUR.
ADA COMPLIANCE WILL BE IN PLACE BY NOVEMBER 2020.
Amalia Pica
Argentinean, born in 1978
Now Speak!, 2011
Cast concrete, live performance
“Now, Speak!” is Michelangelo’s legendary command, as he completed his exceptionally lifelike sculpture of Moses. Pica updates the quote as an invitation. Both physical object and symbolic platform, her lectern prompts expression, dialogue, and action. As she explains: “I am interested in what brings us together, and so communication and its difficulties are for me a sign of how much we need each other.”
All are welcome to make spontaneous declarations here. Pica also encourages us to deliver historic speeches—by individuals with different physical characteristics than our own. The artist believes that “offering another way of looking or thinking about something that feels personal or innocent is more likely to help us effectively find that common ground and stand together before we encounter the ideologies that divide us. ”
Museum purchase with funds donated anonymously, 2013
2013.1829
Reproduced with permission
Family labels: Families with children can find labels geared toward their needs at this symbol.
Amalia Pica
Argentinean, born in 1978
Now Speak!, 2011
Cast concrete, live performance
What do you do when you have something important to say? Does your posture change? Do you dress differently? Do you use a different voice? How do you get other people to listen?
Leaders around the world stand behind podiums when they make speeches. It sets them apart from other people in a room and commands attention. The artist Amalia Pica made this podium as an invitation for people to deliver their own declarations. How is a declaration or a speech different from everyday conversation?
This podium is made of concrete. It’s heavy and takes up space in the gallery. When someone stands on it, people notice. People don’t usually stand on works of art and other people wonder what the person is going to say or do. If you could speak from behind this podium, what would you say? Who would you want to be in the audience? What would you want people to know or do after they heard you speak?
The artist envisioned that people would deliver historic speeches from this artwork in addition to their own. She wanted people to give speeches written by people who were different from them. (You can see examples of some people doing this below). What happens to the meaning of the speech when it is spoken by someone else? Is there a speech you would want to give? Are there parts that mean something different coming from you than from the original speaker?
K-12: Teachers, parents, and students can find resources for engagement at this symbol.
Katharine Lane Weems
American, 1899–1989
Striding Amazon, modeled in 1926;
revised 1980; cast in 1981
Bronze
Born into a socially prominent Boston family, Katharine Lane Weems graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and rose to prominence as a sculptor of keenly lifelike animals, their realism rooted in the artist’s studies from life at the Bronx Zoo. One of the few human figures Weems ever sculpted, Striding Amazon depicts a muscular female nude, intently posed with a rock in one hand and a look of anguish on her face. According to the artist, the figure—titled after the race of female warriors in Greek mythology—“dramatized the vexation women of her day felt toward the unfair tradition permitting only men to win honors for athletic daring and display.”
Gift of Katharine Lane Weems, 1981
1981.664
Reproduced with permission.
Lorna Simpson
American, born in 1960
“She,” 1949–50; 1992
Photograph, dye-diffusion (Polaroid) prints, and plaque
Simpson rose to prominence in the 1980s and 90s for works that tackle themes such as slavery, racism, beauty, and the human body. Her faceless portraits, as here, also undermine traditional notions of portraiture. In “She,” Simpson confronts expectations surrounding gender: the title and the plaque above the photographs may declare the sitter is “female,” but the tailored suit, hand gestures, and body language also suggest masculinity. Together, these details confront the complications of defining identity through stereotypical notions. “The construction of femininity is a construction, yes,” the artist has said, “but it can also be twisted and turned around in such a way that doesn’t necessarily mean it is pointing to the female body or male body in such a binary fashion.”
Ellen Kelleran Gardner Fund, 1992
1992.204a-e
Reproduced with permission.
"Women Take the Floor highlights the work of women-identifying artists working in the Americas over the past century. Through this experience, you can engage virtually with a selection of those works, as well as access educational tools for families and students of all ages.
This tour focuses on the central gallery of the exhibition, Women Depicting Women: Her Vision, Her Voice. You can also catch a glimpse into some of the other galleries. Curious about opportunities to dig deeper? Look for additional tools geared toward specific audiences, as well as opportunities to interact and add your voice to the exhibition. An explanation of these resources and how to find them are listed here on the right. Guidance for how to navigate the tour is offered on the right.
Add Your Voice: Opportunities to share your thoughts and ideas are available at this symbol.
Alice Neel
American, 1900–1984
Linda Nochlin and Daisy, 1973
Oil on canvas
Neel was one of the 20th century’s foremost practitioners of figurative painting. Working from life, she created provocative and often disarmingly frank portraits of friends and acquaintances in her New York studio. Here she portrays the distinguished art historian Linda Nochlin—whose 1971 essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” remains a touchstone of feminist art history—and her daughter, Daisy.
At Neel’s invitation, Nochlin sat several times for this portrait; ultimately, the artist chose to depict her not as a writer but as a mother, and she captured the pair with her characteristic lush and vivid colors and free brushwork. For most of her career, Neel worked in obscurity, only receiving the acclaim of critics and curators when she was in her seventies.
Seth K. Sweetser Fund, 1983
1983.496
© The Estate of Alice Neel
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
Loïs Mailou Jones
American, 1905–1998
Ubi Girl from Taï Region, 1972
Acrylic on canvas
Boston-born artist Loïs Mailou Jones portrays a self-possessed girl from the Taï Region of Côte d’Ivoire, her face painted for her initiation into womanhood. The artist mirrors the painted lines on the young woman’s face in red outline, and includes a Dan or Mano mask representing an idealized female spirit, bringing together multiple depictions of womanhood in a single work. For Jones, this painting symbolized a reclamation of her own African heritage, following a trip she took to the continent in her sixties.
After graduating from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Jones studied in Paris. There she felt “released…from all the pressure and stagnation” that Black artists confronted in the United States. Returning to Boston, she said: “I discovered that not only being Black, but being a woman created a double handicap for me to face.” Over the ensuing decades, as an acclaimed painter and esteemed professor at Howard University, Jones would pave the way for generations of female artists of color to follow.
The Hayden Collection—Charles Henry Hayden Fund, 1974
1974.410
© Lois Mailou Jones Pierre-Noel Trust
LOÏS MAILOU JONES
American, 1905–1998
Ubi Girl from Taï Region, 1972
Acrylic on canvas
Boston-born artist Loïs Mailou Jones portrays a self-possessed girl from the Taï Region of Côte d’Ivoire, her face painted for her initiation into womanhood. The artist mirrors the painted lines on the young woman’s face in red outline, and includes a Dan or Mano mask representing an idealized female spirit, bringing together multiple depictions of womanhood in a single work. For Jones, this painting symbolized a reclamation of her own African heritage, following a trip she took to the continent in her sixties.
After graduating from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Jones studied in Paris. There she felt “released…from all the pressure and stagnation” that Black artists confronted in the United States. Returning to Boston, she said: “I discovered that not only being Black, but being a woman created a double handicap for me to face.” Over the ensuing decades, as an acclaimed painter and esteemed professor at Howard University, Jones would pave the way for generations of female artists of color to follow.
Learning objectives:
•Develop skills of inquiry-based learning from close looking, communication, and critical thinking.
•Cultivate curricular associations that deepen content-based engagement with a range of academic disciplines.
1.Imagine you’ve been asked to describe this work to someone in an adjacent room with no visual access to the work. Spend a few minutes looking closely and describe what you see.
2.At first glance, what do you notice first about this work of art? How does your eye move through the composition? Are there areas that pull you in immediately? What clues direct that sense of movement?
3.Describe the colors you see. How does the artist’s use of vivid colors create a sense of dynamism throughout the work?
4.Consider how the artist has arranged this work. How might you describe the relationship between abstract patterns and the masks represented?
5.Look closely at the masks represented. What do you notice about the textures and forms in each? How are they rendered differently?
6.Jones often included African motifs in her work in celebration of her African heritage. Compare Jones’s approach to that of other artists such as Aaron Douglas, who draw upon aspects of African culture.
7.In this work, Jones draws inspiration from masks that refer to those of the Taï Region of Liberia, the Ivory Coast, and the Dominican Republic of Congo in Central Africa. Discuss the significance of these works in the context of this exhibition. In what ways do the masks relate to issues of personal and cultural identity?
8.Jones demonstrated an avid interest in drawing early in life and would go on to develop a prolific career as an artist and teacher in spite of the systemic challenges in place for African American artists working in the United States. Discuss the ways in which Jones, like many other African American artists, overcame barriers related to racism and gender-based exclusion.
9.Following the time she spent studying in Paris, Jones asserted, “I discovered that not only being Black, but being a woman created a double handicap for me to face.” In what ways does this statement relate to the concept of intersectionality in which the systematic exclusion of women must be understood in the context of marginalization and oppression of other groups and genders?
10.What questions does the work raise for you?
LOÏS MAILOU JONES
American, 1905–1998
Ubi Girl from Taï Region, 1972
Acrylic on canvas
Loïs Mailou Jones grew up in Boston, but traveled all over Africa. Look closely: how many faces can you find in this painting? The face that has white paint on it is a young woman from Côte d’Ivoire, a country in Africa. When a girl becomes a woman near the city of Taï, Côte d’Ivoire, she has her face painted as part of the celebration. Have you ever had your face painted for a special occasion?
Andrea Bowers
American, born in 1965
Trans Liberation: Building a Movement (Cece McDonald), 2016
Photograph, archival pigment print
Andrea Bowers identifies as a feminist and a social activist and she uses her art to give visibility to under-discussed issues of resistance, inclusion, and justice. In this work, she draws upon slogans and imagery from past liberation and feminist movements to focus on “a fresh form of sisterhood between trans and nontrans women”—at a particular moment when transgender individuals (especially trans women of color) are subject to widespread discrimination and violence. Clad here as the avenging angel of liberty with wings and a hammer, CeCe McDonald is an African American bisexual transgender woman from Minneapolis who became a prominent LGBTQ activist after she defended herself and a friend from a transphobic attack outside a bar in 2011. In a ruling that sparked a wave of protests, McDonald was then sentenced to forty-one months in a men’s prison.
Towles Contemporary Art Fund, 2016
2016.235
© Andrea Bowers and Ada Tinnell
Lalla Essaydi
Moroccan (active in the United States),
born in 1956
Converging Territories #30, 2004
Photograph, chromogenic print
Within Islam, calligraphy is a sacred (and typically male) art form. In her photographs, Essaydi associates it with women’s bodies to suggest the complexity of gender roles within Islamic cultures. Here, calligraphy fills the image: using henna dye, Essaydi applies it directly onto her models, their drapery, and their surroundings before she photographs the scene. These surroundings—constricted, undefined—also suggest the boundaries imposed upon women, including psychological confinement. “These women ‘speak’ through the language of femininity to each other and to the house of their confinement,” Essaydi has written of her Converging Territories series, “just as my photographs have enabled me to speak.”
Collection of Susan B. Kaplan
L-SE 1261.15.1
Reproduced with permission
move your finger on
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Frida Kahlo
Mexican, 1907–1954
Dos mujeres (Salvadora y Herminia)
Two Women (Salvadora and Herminia), 1928
Oil on canvas
Jump into this painting and stand beside these two women. You are surrounded by green leaves, fruits, and butterflies. You hear a breeze blowing through the leaves. What other sounds do you hear? Can you smell the citrus fruit above your head? Imagine you are standing beside the woman in blue. What do you see in front of you?
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist who painted pictures of herself and the people around her. She painted this portrait of two women named Salvadora and Herminia, the “muchachas” or workers in her childhood home.
Frida Kahlo
Mexican, 1907–1954
Dos mujeres (Salvadora y Herminia)
Two Women (Salvadora and Herminia), 1928
Oil on canvas
At a time when modern Mexican art became nearly synonymous with murals—public, monumental, and painted by men—Kahlo filled canvases with radically intimate and political imagery. Here, she depicts Salvadora and Herminia, two working-class, mixed-race women, with all the dignity afforded to elite portrait sitters. She carefully highlighted the range of tones in the women’s faces and the contrasting colors of their clothing. Kahlo had originally painted them wearing aprons, but then chose to eliminate the detail that would mark them as muchachas, or domestic workers. In this early work, the first painting ever sold by the artist, Kahlo gazed at Salvadora and Herminia from her educated, middle-class perspective. However, her experiences with disability, cultural tensions within her family, and romantic relationships with both men and women would influence her artistic explorations of personal identities and social inequalities throughout her artistic career. One of the 20th century’s most influential sculptors, Bourgeois—like many of the artists featured on this floor—did not receive the recognition she deserved until late in life. Pillar belongs to a series of sculptures begun in the late 1940s and originally titled Personnages (French for “characters” or “figures”). According to Bourgeois, these works served as surrogates for people she had left behind: a “tangible way of re-creating a missed past.” Originally hewn in balsa wood, it was later recast in bronze and retitled Pillar, suggesting a newfound solidity and strength.
Charles H. Bayley Picture and Paintings Fund, William Francis Warden Fund, Sophie M. Friedman Fund, Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund, Tompkins Collection—Arthur Gordon Tompkins Fund, Gift of Jessie H. Wilkinson—Jessie H. Wilkinson Fund, and Robert M. Rosenberg Family Fund, 2015
2015.3130
© 2020 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F.
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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Genevive (Gene) Huston
American, 1907–1987
Woman in Yellow, 1940
Oil on canvas
Gene Huston was born in Portland, Oregon but made her way to California in the 1920s.
An early student of the pioneering modern artist and educator Hans Hofmann, Huston went on to become a teacher in her own right and, during the Great Depression, created work for the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). An accomplished painter, Huston purposefully employed a simplified style that recalls both the early canvases of her then-partner Morris Louis and the 19th-century folk art portraits that many artists found inspiring in the 1920s and 30s.
Grant Walker Fund, 1984
1984.766
Reproduced with permission
Sylvia Sleigh
American (born in Wales), 1916–2010
Rosemary Mayer, 1978
Oil on canvas
A realist painter, teacher, and gallerist, Sylvia Sleigh is best known for her feminist portraits in which she reversed stereotypical gender roles—presenting men in poses that recall famous images of women. From 1976–2007 she also created a series of portraits of influential feminist artists and cultural leaders, such as this one of Rosemary Mayer. A multi-media artist who worked in performance art and installations, Mayer was a founder of the A.I.R. (Artists in Residence) Gallery, the first all-female cooperative gallery in the United States, in 1972. Sleigh became a member of A.I.R. in 1974.
Gift of the Estate of Sylvia Sleigh, 2019
2019.492
Reproduced with permission
Patty Chang
American, born in 1972
Melons (At a Loss), 1998
Single-channel video (color, sound);
3 minutes 44 seconds, looped
Patty Chang explores themes such as language, gender, empathy, and femininity through videos and performances. Melons, according to Chang,
is a “performance juggling a narrative of an
imaginary cultural ritual.” On her head, the artist balances a plate loaded with symbolic ideals of female behavior: perfect posture, nourishment, saintly sacrifice, commemoration, and ultimately defiance. Chang boldly fills the plate with seeds scooped from a cantaloupe she cuts open at her breast—a visceral gesture matched by the descriptions in the tale she recites. “Melons is…based on images and script about my aunt’s death from breast cancer and the emotion void in my memory,” according to Chang. Read the full text of her performance nearby.
The Heritage Fund for a Diverse Collection, 2016
2016.183
Courtesy of the artist
Patty Chang
American, born in 1972
Melons (At a Loss), 1998
Single-channel video (color, sound);
3 minutes 44 seconds, looped
In the looping video, Chang recites this monologue:
When my aunt died, I got a plate. It was the kind of plate with a color photo printed on it in a poisonous ink that you couldn’t eat or else you’d die too. The original, which was made in a fine porcelain, was made back when my aunt and uncle got married—back in the days when black and white meant photos and color meant paint.
When she died, extras were ordered from Thrifty’s photo department. $10.99 for a saucer, $29.99 for dinner. I was given a saucer and I was told it was because I was smaller and more petite than everyone else, not because it was cheaper. It came in a small box wrapped in a dark olive paper, no silver curlicues, no bows and plastic flowers, just plain with a piece of tape on either end. And inside that box was a single saucer, minus the cup, and a redwood display stand. And on that saucer was an image of my aunt two years before she died with a smile so wide her eyes disappeared into hairline slits, almost erased into her skin. And she was just like Saint Lucy, Saint Lucy of Syracuse: eyeless, sightless, and carrying her baby blues on a platter. Two ripe round grapes like I’d put on a dish on Halloween when I was nine and I’d make my ten-year-old boyfriend put his fingers into it. And I’d tell him, “They’re my dog’s, can’t you tell? I pulled them out today just for you.” And right there on the spot, he’d confess his undying love to me.
She was power incarnate and I imagined that she could see into whatever room that she left her eyes. And I looked up to my plate just as Lucy did hers. I thought I understood all the powers that it held.
And whenever I was punished for not doing something I was told to, I would gently take that plate off of its redwood display stand, and lick that puppy ‘til her smile was erased.