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Louise Moillon’s work became known to the public in 1629 when her stepfather, François Garnier, was invited to exhibit his work in Grenoble. Betraying her professional ambitions, Louise begged her stepfather to display one of her paintings alongside his. Garnier balked, but Moillon’s mother interceded on her daughter’s behalf, insisting that one painting depicting a bowl of peaches be shown in Grenoble. To Garnier’s shock, the painting sold immediately, and Moillon’s artistic star rose from then on. She produced more paintings, began selling them commercially, and earned a reputation as a talented, precise artist. Although the exact number of her paintings is unknown, she was prolific: an inventory of Moillon’s mother’s possessions at the time of her death in 1630 shows 13 paintings in her mother’s collection alone, when Louise was just 20 years old.

Louise Moillon, Cup of Cherries and Melon, 1633; Louvre Museum

Moillon’s preferred medium was oil paint, usually on small wooden panels. However, she began working on a larger scale in the 1630s, incorporating human figures into her work. Having never received formal artistic training, Moillon became the pupil of Abraham Bosse (1604–1676), an artist and instructor at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Curiously, Bosse’s depictions of men and women have been characterized as stiff and awkward; a quick glance at many of Moillon’s still-lifes incorporating human figures—usually sturdy, strong women hauling baskets of fruit, like those seen in At the Market Stall, n.d.—suggests that Moillon’s portrayals were similarly rigid. This is perhaps also because, as a woman artist, she lacked access to live models. Nevertheless, Moillon successfully included depictions of people in her still-lifes without sacrificing the genre: the fruits and vegetables always take center stage as the subject of the paintings, with human figures of secondary visual interest.

Unlike many of her still-life predecessors, Moillon’s paintings do not appear to hint at the eventual decay of the fruit depicted. Prevalent in Dutch and Flemish painting, this expected subtlety lent moral undertones hinting at the fleeting nature of life. Such a technique was considered a viable alternative for Protestant artists to incorporate messages of morality, since they eschewed the overt, figural religious art commissioned for the Catholic Church. Moillon’s apparent lack of moral and metaphorical intent suggests that she abandoned this Protestant tradition in order to appeal to a largely Catholic French clientele, or, alternatively, that as a patriotic French woman grateful for religious freedom and aware of widespread religious persecutions, she wanted to produce paintings free from the trappings of religion. Moillon’s paintings appear soundly secular, intended to adorn homes and chateaux with naturalistic portrayals of nature.

Louise Moillon, A Market Stall, ca. 1630; NMWA Collection; Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

Unthinkably for a woman of her time, Moillon became an artistic sensation in France, earning the support of prestigious clients at home and abroad. It is believed that King Louis XIII (1601–1643), upon hearing of Moillon’s popularity and her Grenoble peach painting, commissioned a painting depicting fruit and a candelabrum arranged on a table. Another royal to possess works by Moillon was England’s King Charles I, whose art collection in 1639 reportedly included five of her paintings. The artist’s most devoted public fan was likely Claude de Bullion (1569–1640), Louis XIII’s Minister of Finance, who bought many of Moillon’s paintings for himself and for the king. His personal collection included 12 of her paintings, one of which he commissioned for his private residence. In 1640, at age 30, Moillon married Etienne Girardot, a wealthy lumber merchant and devout Protestant. For the next three decades, Moillon dedicated herself to managing her household and raising their three children, producing only one painting dated 1641. In 1648, Girardot died, but Louise did not resume her artistic career until the 1670s, with known works from her last decades dating to 1674 and 1684.

The last 11 years of Moillon’s life were racked by religious strife reflecting the national political scene. In 1685, King Louis XV signed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, effectively stripping Protestants in France of their religious freedom and threatening them with imprisonment or death. Still staunchly Protestant at age 75 at the time of the Revocation, Louise fled to London with her two daughters, where she learned of her son’s imprisonment in the Bastille for refusing to recant his beliefs (he eventually converted). Louise later returned to France, perhaps under threat of the confiscation of her paintings, where she was apparently compelled to adopt Catholicism: a Protestant bulletin of the time recounts that her son was present when she received the last rites of the Catholic Church on her deathbed. In 1696, Louise succumbed to heart failure.

Boasting one of the most stellar artistic careers in 17th-century France, Louise Moillon played a crucial role in raising the genre of still-life painting to one of the most popular art forms in France. With her minute attention to detail, clever incorporation of human figures, and secular style, Moillon contributed to one of France’s most important cultural peaks, the Grand Siècle of 17th-century art that propelled France to the forefront of European art.

—Raphael Fitzgerald is an art historian and researcher.

Works Consulted:

Museo Thyssen Bornemisza, n.d. Retrieved June 15, 2013, from http://www.museothyssen.org/en/thyssen/ficha_artista/409

Park, Rebecca (2010). From the Vault: Louise Moillon. Retrieved June 15, 2013, from http://womeninthearts.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/from-the-vault-louise-moillon/

Sowa, Helen (1998). Louise Moillon, Seventeenth Century Still-Life Artist. Chateau Publishing, Inc.

“I didn’t want people to be able to look, and look away, because a lot of people do that with art. . . . I want them to look and see. I want to grab their eyes and hold them, because this is America.”
—Faith Ringgold

Black Light Series #3: Soul Sister, 1967; Oil on canvas; Courtesy of Faith Ringgold and ACA Galleries, New York; © Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold—forthright about demanding viewers’ attention—made this statement in regard to her controversial “American People” series, which often depicted violent and uneasy interactions, but it applies to her innovative “Black Light” series as well.

Through this series, produced from 1967 to 1971, Ringgold embraced and elevated the notion that “black is beautiful.” Especially in a work like Black Light Series #3: Soul Sister, Ringgold rejects a standard of beauty determined by white culture, celebrating the features that make this bold female figure visually stunning.

Unlike many of the abstracted, almost mask-like faces that appear in the series, Soul Sister presents a realistic representation of a figure. The woman’s natural hairstyle and gold hoop earrings represent popular trends in the black community in the 1960s, and Ringgold uses them to exalt a distinctly African American style as beautiful. The long vertical canvas emphasizes the statuesque confidence of the bare-breasted woman.

In her “Black Light” works, Ringgold focused on depicting the subtle tonal range of African American skin, a skill she was never taught in art school. In creating the varying shades, the artist blended colors specifically without the use of white paint. Even for this single figure, Ringgold crafted several different shades of skin tones, which vary at least three times in the distance from her breasts to her face.

In her portrait of a contemporary black woman, Ringgold celebrates the power of her identity as both an African American and a woman. In other “Black Light” paintings, the artist presents gradations of skin tones or mask-like works that incorporate influences from African art. In this piece, however, the lone figure stands simply and proudly, reflecting Faith Ringgold’s vision of a broader definition of beauty and a more inclusive future.

—Alee Petrucelli is the publications and marketing/communications intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

American People, Black Light: Faith Ringgold’s Paintings of the 1960s, NMWA’s current exhibition, can enlighten and inspire observers, as I discovered through connecting my NMWA internship with an art project I was developing for a community arts center.

As a staff member of the Columbia Art Center in Columbia, Maryland, I participated in an annual one-day “Umbrella Exhibition” on June 21 celebrating Columbia’s 46th birthday at a lakefront venue. This year’s theme was “Respect,” and participants were encouraged to create works expressing “ideas, thoughts, and feelings by exploring the many ways people and/or the community can give back.”

In the NMWA galleries, a view of political posters by Faith Ringgold, including (left) Women Free Angela

I started interning at NMWA in the first week of June, and I was immediately submerged into the life of Faith Ringgold. I read the catalogue American People, Black Light: Faith Ringgold’s Paintings of the 1960s. I browsed her autobiography, We flew over the Bridge: The Memoirs of Faith Ringgold, and searched the internet for articles that explicitly discussed a few of her more “provocative” paintings such as American People Series #20: Die or American People Series #18: The Flag Is Bleeding. Her work reflects her experience as an American black woman artist at the intersection of civil rights, race relations, gender, and social class inequality in the ’60s.

After admiring Ringgold’s art and contemplating design ideas for the umbrella, I realized that my experiences at these two art institutions were connected. The dimensions of the umbrella’s canvas were set into eight triangular “panels.” A Congolese textile pattern called Kuba, which I recognized in a few of Ringgold’s political posters, immediately came to mind.  Her posters were a visual form of political protest advocating race and gender equality during the era of the black power movement. Within the triangular Kuba design, she used large text and bold colors—including red, green, and black, related to the colors of the Black Nationalist flag, which is depicted in the poster Women Free Angela.

My design consisted of my interpretation of the American flag painted on four panels of the umbrella with 50 stars painted around the edge, two green panels with the word “Respect,” and two yellow panels filled with the word “Humanity.” The use of green and yellow signified two colors that are present in the Howard County, Maryland, flag (the location of the Columbia Art Center), and I chose those words because I wanted to express the interconnection of respecting people, the earth, yourself, and visions unmentioned. To viewers, the words “respect” and “humanity” might spark reflection on giving back to communities.

I highly recommend visiting American People, Black Light.These works resurfaced in 2010 after not having been viewed for nearly 40 years; observing the tension and accomplishments of the 1960s and ’70s through Ringgold’s work challenges viewers to understand parts of history that are often dismissed in political and cultural discussions of today. After the process of connecting two experiences to create my Ringgold-inspired work, I believe her works have the power to motivate observers in constructive ventures they choose to take on, which can spark transformation in people’s daily lives.

—Manique Buckmon is an education intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Audrey Niffenegger’s works explore the world of the unconscious mind through dreams and fantasies—within NMWA’s exhibition Awake in the Dream World, many of these pieces are gathered in a gallery called “In Dreamland.” The “Dreamland” works tell unusual and interesting stories where morbidity, romance, and humor intermix. Niffenegger confronts themes of mortality and the passage of time in an attempt to startle her viewers into appreciating “the fleeting nature of our selves.” Skeletons feature prominently in these macabre images: Niffenegger describes the cadaverous figures as a part of a “vocabulary for expressing ideas about permanence and the ephemeral.”

Audrey Niffenegger, Black Roses (In Memory of Isabella Blow), 2007; Linocut, Gampi tissue, and thread on Japanese paper, 67 x 25 1/2 in.; Image courtesy of Audrey Niffenegger

In paying tribute to the late British fashion editor Isabella Blow in 2007, Niffenegger created a portrait of Blow as an elaborately adorned skeleton, strangely luminous and delicate in a gorgeous array of black roses. To create the flowers, the artist used silky Japanese tissue, which enlivens the skirt’s rich, textural billow and folds, counterbalancing the skeleton’s austere torso. Another work on view dedicated to the memory of the fashionista, The Starling’s Funeral, depicts her in a similarly radiant manner as the lustrous bird known for its iridescent plumage.

For Blow’s funeral, her dear friend, the hat designer Philip Treacy, arranged for her body to be carried to Gloucester Cathedral by a horse-drawn Victorian carriage made of glass. Emulating the romantic flourish of Blow’s service, Niffenegger preserved the editor’s trademark love of fashion, as she remains impeccably dressed even in the afterlife. The artist added a final decorative touch to the composition with a rose atop Blow’s head in an allusion to Treacy, another Niffenegger fashion idol. The figure in Black Roses (In Memory of Isabella Blow), with its strange, otherworldly beauty, epitomizes Niffenegger’s artistic style.

Niffenegger often portrays troubled women, both real and imagined. Like many of the artist’s tragic characters, Blow suffered from mental and physical anguish leading up to her death. Slightly morbid and somehow whimsical at the same time, the works featured in “In Dreamland” push the impending nature of death to the forefront of viewer’s minds with memento mori like skeletons and her Vanitas portfolio. In spite of this heaviness, Niffenegger imbues works like Black Roses with buoyancy that suggests a sense of hope—or at least a sense of the absurd—in the face of life’s despair.

—Alee Petrucelli is the publications and marketing/communications intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

KYOPO

Many of you may be familiar with Korean photographer Cindy Hwang, known as CYJO, from her participation in the National Portrait Gallery’s 2011–12 exhibition Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter. She is best known for her KYOPO Project, an ongoing series of more than 200 full-body portraits that speak about Korean immigration and cultural identity. With these portraits, CYJO hopes to highlight the diversity of kyopo—a Korean term that describes people of Korean descent who reside permanently outside of Korea—and challenge preconceptions of Korean identity.

CYJO poses each portrait frontally against a plain white backdrop and wood floor. Each person faces and meets the gaze of the viewer.  When seen as a group, individual characteristics in each portrait immediately jump out; clothing choices, stance, and expressions all add to the diversity that CYJO hopes to express. Individual portraits are paired with the person’s name, basic biographical information, and their words on their feelings and experiences of being a Korean immersed in another culture.

Umbrage Editions published a handsome catalogue of the KYOPO Project. It includes 237 full-color reproductions of her portraits alongside corresponding text, as well as insightful essays by Julian Stallabras (a writer, curator, photographer, and Art History professor at the Courtauld Institute of Art) and Marie Myung-OK Lee (resident and teacher at the Center for the Study of Race & Ethnicity in America at Brown University). For any fans of Lost actor Daniel Dae Hyun Kim, he’s included here as well!

We welcome all to stop by to look at this beautiful book in person. We’re open to the public M–F, 10 a.m.–noon and 1 p.m.–5 p.m. If you’re touring the museum’s exhibitions, the library makes a great starting point on the fourth floor! In addition to the beautiful books and comfy reading chairs, visitors enjoy interesting exhibitions featuring artists’ books, archival manuscripts, and rare books. Reference Desk staff are always happy to answer questions and offer assistance. We hope to see you soon!

—Jennifer Page is the Library Assistant at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

At first glance, the two exhibitions on view this summer at NMWA, Awake in the Dream World: The Art of Audrey Niffenegger and American People, Black Light: Faith Ringgold’s Paintings of the 1960s (both on view through November 10) could not feature the work of two more stylistically dichotomous artists.

The artists’ self-portraits encapsulate their differing styles; Left: Audrey Niffenegger, Moths of the New World, 2005; Courtesy of the artist; Right: Faith Ringgold, Early Works #25: Self-Portrait, 1965; (c) Faith Ringgold, photo Jim Frank

At one extreme, Audrey Niffenegger conjures up surreal, minimalist depictions of the bizarre, absurd, and nightmarish that speak to her introspective, whimsical approach to art—images that boast figures minutely rendered with delicately drawn lines, muted color palettes, and which allow insight into the artist’s deeply personal fantasies. At the other end of the spectrum is Faith Ringgold, whose bold, colorful, passionate paintings from her American People and Black Light series of the 1960s function on both a personal and political level. Ringgold’s work bravely probed racial tensions from the perspective of a black woman artist during an era when art often did not directly reference the racial turmoil rocking America, and it simultaneously served as a public rallying cry to end racial and gender-based discrimination.

While NMWA’s galleries this summer may at first seem a curious combination of darkness and color, morbidity and vivacity, fantasy and immediacy, there are, in fact, interesting artistic techniques shared by Niffenegger and Ringgold that facilitate the expressions of these two outstanding artists. One is the juxtaposition of text and images; the other is the use of shock value to capture and captivate an audience.

Audrey Niffenegger, But it was only Mr. Rain, print from artist’s book Spring, 1993; Courtesy of the artist

Ironically for Niffenegger, who in addition to being an accomplished book artist and printmaker is known as the best-selling author of the sci-fi/romance novel The Time Traveler’s Wife, text is never the primary vehicle for storytelling in her artist’s books, or “visual novels” as she refers to them. Always brief and supplemental, words serve as aids to facilitate the story’s progression, always secondary to the entrancing figures that power her fantastical, stream-of-consciousness tales. Although their role is a supporting one, the text in Niffenegger’s visual novels is nevertheless crucial, serving as a guide to navigate observers through the confusion of surreal worlds. They simultaneously serve as artistic elements in themselves, beautifully hand-drawn or produced by hand-set letterpress type, capable in their appearance of setting diverse moods from the whimsical to the morbid. Spring (1993), one of several visual novels on view in Awake in the Dream World, features hand-colored lithographs that tell the story of a love-weary young author who writes to the backdrop of falling spring rain and eventually meets Mr. Rain, a character from one of her stories. Throughout the book, melancholy, romanticized images of the protagonist are accented with rounded, cursive writing reminiscent of love letters or diary entries, which augments the images in creating a mood of heartbreak, wistfulness, and unfulfilled romance. 

Text makes its way into the work of Faith Ringgold in her Black Light series, a collection of paintings created between 1967 and 1969 that often incorporates mask-like figures inspired by African art from Nigeria and Ghana, as well as in her highly politicized poster art. Ringgold’s posters—political works meant to be mass-distributed at low cost to the populace, promoting a sense of unity and egalitarianism—often feature powerful phrases and rally words intended to empower the black community in the 1960s during rallies or protests.

Faith Ringgold, The People’s Flag Show, 1970; (c) Faith Ringgold, courtesy the artist and ACA Galleries, photo Jim Frank

Unlike Niffenegger’s use of text—which although artistic, is still secondary to the art—Ringgold’s words are the art itself. In The People’s Flag Show, text protesting restrictive laws forms her flag’s stripes. She created the poster for an exhibition demonstrating solidarity with a gallerist who had been arrested for showing antiwar art made from the American flag, and the exhibition of The People’s Flag Show led to Ringgold’s arrest as well. In Black Light Series #6: Love Black Life, 1969, as well as other works such as Freedom Woman Now, 1971, and Woman Free Yourself, 1971, Ringgold utilizes a Kuba design, inspired by art from the Congo, in which a square canvas is divided into four squares, which are then bisected into triangles (reminiscent of a quilt pattern). Her selected words, such as “love,” “black,” and “life,” fill and dominate each triangle, working either in synergy as an invitation to “love black life,” or individually as terms to be cherished and internalized. Either way, the three repeated words, arranged in an enticing illusion, are in themselves the art, the message, and the call to action so passionately envisioned by Ringgold.

—Raphael Fitzgerald is an art historian and researcher.

Click here to read more: Shock Value

Exhibitions of work by Audrey Niffenegger and Faith Ringgold are on view through November 10 at NMWA. At first glance their work seems quite different, but in addition to employing text in their art, they are connected by another unlikely tactic: the use of shock value to grab the attention of their audiences.

Audrey Niffenegger, Her companions were the other Creatures the alchemist had created, print from artist’s book The Adventuress, 1983–85; Courtesy of the artist

This technique is perhaps more immediately obvious in Niffenegger’s fantastical works, in which skeletons and other morbid figures intermingle with grotesque hybrid creatures reminiscent of the work of Heironymus Bosch (1450–1516) and Surrealist René Magritte (1898–1967). As Niffenegger puts it, “I use fantastic elements in my art to startle people into noticing and paying attention…strangeness makes us see more acutely”—a sentiment aligned with the early 20th-century Surrealist movement that espoused the portrayal of off-putting, illogical scenes and figures in an attempt to express the unconscious and to comment on the supposed absurdity of life. In a page from Niffenegger’s first visual Novel The Adventuress (1983–85)—the story of a brave, if ill-fated, adventuring woman created by an alchemist father—the shocking, macabre figure of a half-fish, half-human hybrid dominates the scene, sitting on a table amid other gruesome creatures  (Her companions were the other Creatures the alchemist had created,  from The Adventuress). Immediately reminiscent of Magritte’s 1934 The Collective Invention, a rendering of a half-woman, half-fish creature that startles viewers through the shocking nature of the juxtaposed elements, Niffenegger’s hybrid creature similarly shocks and directs attention to the strangeness inherent in nature and dreams.

Less blatant than Niffenegger’s use of the strange and startling is Ringgold’s subtle incorporation of shocking racial language in some of her works to send strong messages about racial discrimination and inequality. Much of her art depicts strong scenes of violence, racial tension, and unease, often juxtaposed with flag imagery—the compositions point to America’s shortcomings in terms of racial progress, but several, such as Black Light Series #10: Flag for the Moon: Die Nigger, demand that the viewer take time to look closely to understand.

At NMWA, Faith Ringgold discusses her work, including American People Series #19: U.S. Postage Stamp Commemorating the Advent of Black Power, 1967; This work subtly incorporates the words “Black Power” and “White Power”; (c) Faith Ringgold, Courtesy of the artist and ACA Galleries, New York

Without looking at its title, Black Light Series #10: Flag for the Moon: Die Nigger, 1969, at first appears to be a simple image of painted American flag, devoid of any controversy. Upon second glance, however, a word slowly becomes discernible in the starry blue portion of the flag: “Die.” Unnerving on its own, this word prompts viewers to look for other hidden words on the flag. Suddenly, the horizontal red and white stripes of the flag do not appear uniform, and when viewed from the side, reveal the word “nigger” (frequently incorporated into Ringgold’s art). Unlike the immediate shock of Niffenegger’s odd creatures, Ringgold’s jaw-dropping message is discernible only after a time of concentration—likely an intentional choice on the artist’s part to prompt viewers to take time and consider the context and meaning of the work. Created in the year of the Apollo 11 moon landing, Flag for the Moon is a commentary on the status of American progress from the perspective of an African-American in the 1960s, drawing attention to the fact that, while astronauts may have been landing on the moon, black Americans were still suffering. Additionally, Ringgold may have considered her flag—and its shocking phrase in particular—to be a better alternative to the flag actually planted on the moon, considering that vast sums of money were spent on the space program by the U.S. government instead of being dedicated to ending racial disenfranchisement at home.

Vastly different in their styles, mediums, and messages, both artists currently featured at NMWA employ clever devices to tell stories, make statements, and enrapture observers. While Niffenegger fills the role of fantasy weaver and Ringgold that of political activist, both women are visionaries in their own right who have left, and continue to leave, their unique imprint on the art world.

—Raphael Fitzgerald is an art historian and researcher.

Read more in the exhibitions’ catalogues:

Audrey Niffenegger, Krystyna Wasserman, and Marc Pascale. Awake in the Dream World: The Art of Audrey Niffenegger. Washington, DC: National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2013.

Faith Ringgold, Michele Wallace, Thom Collins, and Tracy Fitzpatrick. American People, Black Light: Faith Ringgold’s Paintings of the 1960s. Purchase, N.Y.: Neuberger Museum of Art, 2010.

While the 1960s resonate in the American cultural memory as a divisive and turbulent era, prevalent trends in contemporary art at the time offered very little indication of this national upheaval. Instead, Pop artists rose to prominence painting comics and consumer products, and Minimalists sanitized their works, eschewing emotional appeal and focusing strictly on formal elements. Instead of conforming to the abstract trend, Faith Ringgold directly engaged with the social and political shifts of the 1960s and 1970s, resolute in her belief that “artists have the job of documenting their times.”

Faith Ringgold, Committee to Defend the Panthers, 1970; Cut paper poster, 27 5/8 x 21 1/2 in.; (c) Faith Ringold, image Jim Frank, courtesy of Faith Ringgold and ACA Galleries

By the late 1960s, the struggle for Civil Rights had intensified. The movement’s leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in 1968, and divergent political groups emerged, including those advocating “Black Power.” Faith Ringgold designed several political posters specifically for the Black Panther Party in New York.

The increasingly radical direction of several political groups, the rise of a youth “counterculture,” and widespread protest over U.S. military involvement in Vietnam all contributed to the era’s contentious atmosphere. In one such landmark instance of violence in September 1971, prisoners began to riot at the Attica Correctional Facility, a prison in upstate New York. The inmates took control of the penitentiary, demanding better conditions. Eventually, 40 people—prisoners, guards, and civilians—were killed when police stormed the facility. This unprecedented outbreak illustrated the incendiary cultural environment, causing Faith Ringgold to reflect on how violence weaved itself into the fabric of American culture.

In the NMWA galleries, a view of political posters by Faith Ringgold, including (center) United States of Attica

In her political poster United States of Attica (1971–2), Ringgold presents a map of the United States that locates and enumerates riots, murders, and wars, tangibly documenting casualties of hate and violence. A fascinatingly rich and disturbing tapestry, the artist wrote in each atrocity by location, and invited viewers to do the same. Very few empty spaces exist on this map of the nation’s then-200 year history. Even the first part of the title, “United States,” seems a contradiction, with the flag divided into four parts and all available space used to record instances of disharmony and destruction. Rather than red, white, and blue, Ringgold composed her map of red and green, reminiscent of Marcus Garvey’s Black Nationalist Flag.

United States of Attica was Faith Ringgold’s most widely distributed political poster of the 1970s. Like her American People and Black Light series, the artist grappled with contemporary issues of race, identity, and violence. However, reinforcing the spirit of another poster displayed in the exhibition, “All power to the people,” Ringgold used this medium to reach a wider audience, people who would be responsive and reactive to her message. Through shifting her focus to producing political posters in the early 1970s, Ringgold was not only able to showcase societal problems, but also to encourage awareness and dialogue to begin the work of solving them.

—Alee Petrucelli is a publications and marketing/communications intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

The bleak walls of the Rikers Island Women’s prison may not be the most traditional venue to display art, but Faith Ringgold embraced the location and presented a mural to inspire the female inmates. In For the Women’s House, Ringgold echoed the feminist movement of the 1970s, painting eight different progressive scenes to encourage the women of the prison to imagine themselves moving on with their lives, traveling what an inmate called “the long road.”

For the Women’s House, 1971; Oil on canvas, 96 x 96 in.; (c) Faith Ringold, image courtesy of the artist and Rose M. Singer Center, New York

Before beginning this feminist-themed piece, her first public commission, Faith Ringgold conducted extensive interviews with the female prisoners. She wanted the incarcerated women—mostly young mothers—to look beyond their situation and begin “the long road” ahead. Ringgold managed to capture the road toward not only rehabilitation but also to equality, which the women faced in the ’70s and which still exists for women today.

Ringgold prompted the inmates to imagine all possibilities for their futures.  She depicted women of different ages and races in jobs scarcely occupied by women in 1972. The mural shows a society where all jobs could be readily available to women, regardless of age, race, or gender.

In one quadrant of the mural, a white woman drives a public bus. Adjacent to that image, an African-American woman, a doctor, teaches her female student. In another quadrant, a police officer works alongside a construction worker, both young, African-American women. While it is more common to see women in those positions today, it was extremely rare at the time she painted it, and is still not totally commonplace.

Ringgold stated in an autobiographical essay that the work’s purpose was to “broaden women’s image of themselves by showing women in roles that have not traditionally been theirs…and to show women’s universality.”

Ringgold may have painted the mural to illustrate the end of “the long road” out of prison, but the mural also underscores the continued disparity that women face in many careers. The mural even looks further down the road, including a female African-American President speaking to a group of reporters. Although the present day may still need to catch up to Faith Ringgold’s inspirational vision, women continue to trek down the road leading toward equality.

—Diana Wilkinson is the publications and marketing/communications intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

American People, Black Light: Faith Ringgold’s Paintings of the 1960s is on view at NMWA through November 10. Click here for more information!

Though Audrey Niffenegger may be best known for her 2003 novel The Time Traveler’s Wife, the “Adventures in Bookland” gallery in NMWA’s current exhibition of her work showcases her sensational talent combining her visual art and writing. She considers herself “primarily as a story- teller…within my own art I’ve always been interested in telling stories,” and visitors can see the worlds of art and literature collide through book art. In this gallery her book art is on view alongside book covers, paintings, and other work related to narratives.

Audrey Niffenegger, Book cover for Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility,” for Penguin, New York, 2011; Ink and gouache on Bristol board; Courtesy of the artist

As a visual artist, Niffenegger lent her talents to a redesign of cover art for Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion, the first and last novels written by famed chronicler of romance and 18th-century English society Jane Austen. Niffenegger expertly integrates elements of fantasy into the proper and austere world Austen’s characters inhabit.

Austen’s first published work, Sense and Sensibility, focuses on two sisters who each possess one of the title qualities; Elinor’s practicality and rational judgment contrast Marianne’s deeply emotional and impetuous nature. Niffenegger captures the dispositions of Austen’s heroines by depicting a teacup of fine china, delicately patterned, with the liquid inside restlessly swirling upward into the whirlwind of a tornado.

In Jane Austen’s last novel, Persuasion, the title alludes to societal pressures facing women, often forced to leverage themselves as a commodity through marriage to assure their family’s well-being. More literally within the novel, the character Anne Elliot is influenced—“persuaded”—to fall out of love with a suitor due to his lack of wealth and status.

Audrey Niffenegger, Book cover for Jane Austen’s “Persuasion”, for Penguin; Ink and gouache on Bristol board; Courtesy of the artist

On the cover, Niffenegger portrays Anne with the delicate trappings of wealth befitting Britain’s landed gentry: a long, pristine white gown, opera gloves, and carefully coiffed hair. Unfortunately, Anne’s decision to sacrifice love for money is overwhelming her. The title “P” assumes a thorny, snake-like rope, which coils repeatedly around her until she can no longer move, incapacitated by her error in judgment.

Though the heroines of Austen’s novels and Niffenegger’s visual art exist in totally separate realms, both artists portray strong women who must accept life’s hardships and inevitabilities. For Austen’s characters, this comes in the form of rigid societal constraints and ill-suited or miserable marriages. In Niffenegger’s art, her female characters often contend with fantastical forces in confronting their own mortality.

—Alee Petrucelli is a publications and marketing/communications intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

“The self-portrait is like writing in the first person…There are a variety of ways to use it,” Audrey Niffenegger has said. Within NMWA’s Niffenegger exhibition, Awake in the Dream World, the States of Mind gallery offers up a great many versions of the artist, from a graphite-and-ink sketch as Rembrandt’s wife to a vibrant portrait as a monstrous Medusa. These varied self-portraits document Niffenegger’s shifts in feeling and mood as she uses her own body as a cipher to assume new and different identities.

Self-portraits often function as an avenue for artists to expose their fears, insecurities, and desires; Frida Kahlo’s portraits, for example, are famous for their deeply personal and revealing nature. Niffenegger, however, does not always approach her self-portraits from an autobiographical standpoint. Rather, these characters allow the artist to play dress-up; to assume an identity she would never otherwise experience.

Audrey Niffenegger, Self-Portrait as Rembrandt’s Wife, Saskia, 1992; Graphite with Xerox on Bugra paper, 34 x 28 1/2 in.; Collection of Chapman and Cutler, LLP, Chicago; Image courtesy of the artist

In 2005’s Bad Fairy, Niffenegger presumably transforms herself into a magical creature. Yet, looking into this small oil painting, the portrait is neither fantastic nor supernatural. Instead, Niffenegger portrays herself with aging lines across her forehead, neck, and around her mouth.

Audrey Niffenegger, Bad Fairy, 2005; Oil on wood panel, 12 x 8 3/4 in.; Collection of Larry and Laura Gerber, Highland Park, Illinois; Image courtesy of the artist

The artist’s vibrant red hair is worn loose over her shoulders, with a severe middle part. Around the crown of her head and down the part, graying roots are visible. The messy style partially obscures her eyes, and her head is tilted downward, a sign wariness. Her eyes are cast up in an intense gaze, making her expression powerful and somewhat unnerving.

Why does the artist only include a small wand jutting into the foreground of the image, held by a phantom hand, as the sole demarcation of her magic? Though her depiction as a fairy is very subtle, almost ironic, the ominous dark abyss framing the figure definitively denotes an otherworldly realm. Niffenegger has, in fact, suggested that the Bad Fairy is her artistic persona—she shows herself here as an unwieldy creator of things that may hold danger and magic.

Perhaps Bad Fairy, despite the character’s thinly veiled disguise, indeed reflects Niffenegger as her true self. As in many of her works, the artist directly confronts the passage of time and transient nature of life while, if only briefly, introducing an element of the supernatural.

—Alee Petrucelli is a publications and marketing/communications intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Just a few city blocks from the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the White House famously serves as the residence for the President and his (or someday, her) family. As contemporary artist Andrea Higgins explores in her work on view at NMWA, the personas of first ladies are intriguing: they are highly visible and often iconic, but at the same time they are sharply limited by the strictures of their roles.

Andrea Higgins, Hillary (and detail, right), 2002; Oil on canvas, 52 x 40 in; Gift of Heather and Tony Podesta Collection, Washington, D.C.; Image courtesy the artist and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco

First ladies are exceptional in American public life. They are unelected but prominent in politics, influential icons but generally limited to bolstering their husbands’ images and priorities. Because of this dynamic, they have a very particular type of public power, deeply rooted in their physical appearances and clothing choices. In her series “The Presidents’ Wives,” Higgins paints enlarged fabric swatches of clothes worn by the first ladies and titles them simply with the women’s names, encapsulating each with a textile.

The initial inspiration for Higgins’ series occurred during a trip to Indonesia in 1995, when she observed Hindu women meticulously weaving elegant clothes in the hopes of attracting gods’ attention. Upon her return to the United States, Higgins equated the practice with the dressing of the first ladies in order to craft a public image.

She began her series by examining photographs of iconic outfits worn by first ladies and enlarging the textile patterns. She creates each work by layering distinct brush strokes of paint to emulate the fabric’s stitches. Her final products are dynamic patterns that not only represent the first ladies that sported them, but also are abstractions of the social, economic, and political climate of each presidency.

One of the pieces in NMWA’s collection, Hillary, is a painted representation of Clinton’s famous black pantsuits. The serious color and pattern of the fabric denotes an “all-business” type of woman committed to political work.

Andrea Higgins, Jackie (India), 2003; Oil on canvas, 24 1/2 x 21 in; Gift of Heather and Tony Podesta Collection, Washington, D.C.; Image courtesy the artist and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco

Another painting of the series, Jackie (India), is drawn from an image of Jacqueline Kennedy on her trip to India in 1961. Acknowledging the new power of television during her husband’s administration, she often chose to wear solid colors because they photographed better. The pale orange-pink textile of Jackie’s outfit exudes glamour and elegance that she projected during public appearances.

What does it mean to define a woman by her outfit? There is charm in these carefully selected textiles, but they also reflect the unsettling superficiality in the presentation of these women—each first lady undoubtedly contributed much more to her husband’s administration than her wardrobe choice.  Throughout her series of cloth abstractions, Higgins captures the “look” of both the first lady and coinciding administration, which is embedded in the threads of every first lady’s clothing.

—Diana Wilkinson is the publications and marketing/communications intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

The visual novels of Audrey Niffenegger (b. 1963) are replete with curiously concocted creatures that serve as the primary narrative tools for advancing her bizarre, dreamlike tales.

Raven Girl, 2012; Oil on wood panel, 23 3/4 x 17 3/4 in.; Courtesy of the artist

These creatures open a portal through which readers may enter into the artist’s highly imaginative fantasies. “I use fantastic elements in my art to startle people into noticing and paying attention…strangeness makes us see more acutely,” Niffenegger states. In particular, Niffenegger often depicts macabre hybrid creatures in her work—an artistic technique that stems from a long art-historical tradition of shocking imagery created for the purpose of sending powerful messages and expressing deeply held beliefs.

An excellent example of Niffenegger’s use of hybrid creatures is her visual novel Raven Girl, 2012 (on view through November 10 at NMWA in Awake in the Dream World: The Art of Audrey Niffenegger), a melancholy love story in which a mailman and his raven lover sire a part-human, part-raven daughter. Throughout the story, the Raven Girl struggles with her identity, feeling more like a raven despite her human appearance, eventually turning to modern medicine for assistance in becoming more raven in nature.

And They Lived Happily Together Ever After, aquatint from artist’s book Raven Girl, 2012; Courtesy of the artist

Two Raven Girl images (a 2012 painting, Raven Girl, and a print from the book called And They Lived Happily Together Ever After) demonstrate the precarious balance of the Raven Girl’s dual nature: one image emphasizes her avian background through the depiction of a large, foreboding black wing from which human facial features emerge in isolation; another shows Raven Girl with an almost entirely human body, disrupted only by two graceful black wings that sprout instead of arms. The two hybrid images effectively narrate the internal struggle of the Raven Girl as she works towards resolving her conflicted identity, and demonstrate Niffenegger’s adept use of hybrid beings as message-laden symbols.

—Raphael Fitzgerald is an art historian and researcher.

Click here to visit the Museum Shop and purchase the catalogue for Awake in the Dream World.

(Click here for Part 1 of 2!)

On view at NMWA through November 10, in Awake in the Dream World, Audrey Niffenegger’s work includes an array of fantastical, surreal, and dreamlike creatures. One of Niffenegger’s artistic and conceptual predecessors highly renowned for his creation of grotesque fantasy creatures was early Renaissance Netherlandish painter Heironymus Bosch (1450–1516), best known for his larger-than-life triptych Garden of Earthly Delights, 1503–04. The three panels of the triptych depict a strange and horrifying realm vacillating between heaven and hell. Bizarre creatures and inexplicable behaviors symbolize the follies and excesses that lead humankind to perdition. Of particular interest are Bosch’s monstrous hybrid creations that seem ahead of their time, perhaps more appropriate in the pages of a fantasy novel like The Lord of the Rings than on the canvas of an early Renaissance painter.

Audrey Niffenegger, Her companions were other creatures the Alchemist had created, print from artist’s book The Adventuress, 1983–85

One major difference between the hybrids of Niffenegger and Bosch is that Niffenegger’s generally combine parts of familiar objects and creatures that exist in nature, like the Raven Girl, or the ghoulish, half-fish, half-human featured in Niffenegger’s first visual novel, The Adventuress (1983–85). While the appearance of both these beings is initially startling, they become less terrifying once visually dissected to reveal ordinary body and animal parts combined in curious ways. On the other end of the spectrum, Bosch’s demonic creations are often entirely unfamiliar beings with terrifyingly unfamiliar characteristics, as seen in a detail from Garden of Earthly Delights, wherein a monstrous, alien being torments a damned human. No feature of the creature is immediately recognizable, thus becoming a tool by which Bosch shocked viewers into a frightened state in order to convey his deeply held beliefs regarding mortality and the potential damnation of human souls.

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1503–04

Niffenegger’s method of combining recognizable elements found in nature to create shocking juxtapositions more closely follows the tradition of René Magritte (1898–1967), a painter and adherent (along with Sigmund Freud, André Breton, and Salvador Dalí) of the early-20th-century Surrealist movement. As a Surrealist, Magritte espoused the portrayal of off-putting, illogical scenes and figures in an attempt to express the newly minted notion of the unconscious and to comment on the supposed absurdity and incongruence of life. Magritte’s methods were unique for his time because they attempted to portray the unfamiliar with familiar objects. Instead of shocking his viewers with entirely fantastical creatures, like Bosch, Magritte produced startling relationships among ordinary objects that “would practically shriek at being together” (Dubnick 409).

Audrey Niffenegger, Heartstrings, 1993; Collage on handmade paper; Collection of Jerry Ginsburg, Courtesy of the artist

In L’invention Collective, 1934, Magritte combines a woman’s legs and a fish into one peculiar figure. However ridiculous the legs/fish hybrid may be, the fish and the legs still retain their individual familiarity. In Magritte’s 1934 Le Viol (The Rape), shock value is momentarily delayed as the viewer observes what appears to be a close-up of a woman’s facial features; after a quick investigation, however, a naked female torso emerges, with breasts serving as eyes, and a pubic triangle as a mouth. In such images Magritte’s intent was not to relay a specific message, like Bosch’s heralds of impending damnation; instead, they call attention to the viewer’s futile longing to have his paintings, and life, make sense. Niffenegger’s hybrid creatures similarly shock and direct viewers’ attention to the strangeness inherent in nature and dreams.

Another powerful Surrealist influence on Niffenegger is the magical and mystical work of Remedios Varo (1908–1963). As NMWA curator Krystyna Wasserman states, “Both artists inhabit imaginary realms ruled by magic; both are fascinated by animals, birds, and insects; and both depict hybrid creatures in unstable, atmospheric worlds” (Page 16 catalogue). Known for the enigmatic locations and figures portrayed in her work, Varo often painted grisly hybrids that combine semi-recognizable features from animals and humans (such as Fantastic Beast, 1959). In doing so, both Varo and Niffenegger, as well as their artistic forerunners, embody powerful messages in their work and draw viewers into shadowy dream worlds.

—Raphael Fitzgerald is an art historian and researcher.

Works Cited:

Randa Dubnick, “Visible Poetry: Metaphor and Metonymy in the Paintings of René Magritte.” Contemporary Literature 21, 3 (1980): 407–419.

Exhibition catalogue for Awake in the Dream World: The Art of Audrey Niffenegger; Audrey Niffenegger, Krystyna Wasserman, and Mark Pascale, 2013.

The old cliché “a picture is worth a thousand words” may actually be true of  photographs by Nikki S. Lee in NMWA’s collection. In her series “Parts,” Lee curates scenes of herself with a significant other showing intimate dynamics and details of a relationship, then physically cuts her partner out of each printed photograph.

Nikki S. Lee, Part 12, 2003; Fijiflex print on aluminum, 30 x 26 1/4 in.; NMWA, Gift of Heather and Tony Podesta Collection, Washington, D.C.

This mysterious process imbues meaning and surprise: Lee often created varied, in-depth narratives around her scenes, from routine day-to-day activities to cheerful tourist-style snapshots, to a woman on her wedding day. Her cuts force viewers to focus on the emotions—anger, heartbreak, a wish to forget—with which someone might cut a formerly beloved person out of a photo.

In an interview, Lee said, “The purpose of the cut is to make people curious about the missing person and to think how his identity has affected the woman who is left behind. It forces people to examine the relationship itself, even if it is only part of the story.”

Nikki S. Lee, The Hispanic Project #19, 1998; Fujiflex print, 29 x 22 in.; NMWA, Gift of Heather and Tony Podesta Collection, Washington, D.C.

This series is not Lee’s first major photographic undertaking. For her “Projects” series, Lee insinuated herself into subcultural groups, working for two to three months to be accepted in each social group. These groups included seniors, Hispanics, swingers, yuppies, lesbians, and others. For each project, Lee changed what she wore, where she shopped, and how she presented herself. After she had spent time with them, she would ask a friend or passerby snap a picture of the group. These photographs—simultaneously staged and casual—are less than professional, even including the date and timestamp from the small digital cameras used to take them.

The “Projects” series is less about artistic beauty, and more about exploring the many facets of oneself. Lee has said that each of the roles she played during this project made up a piece of her. She examines the ways that a person can be made up of many disparate identities and personality traits, and she also examines the way that being surrounded by different groups of people who share those traits can completely change how you are perceived by others.

Each of Lee’s series analyzes the deeper meanings of outward identities. She focuses on how identities can be changed by who we surround ourselves with, what we wear, and how we act. While “Parts” spotlights the ways the relationships affect our lives, “Projects” demonstrates the fluidity of identity that people use to define others as well as themselves.

—Brittany Carpenter is the education intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

As an artist, Faith Ringgold has always worked to tell her story.

Faith Ringgold at NMWA with (right) American People Series #1: Between Friends, 1963; Collection Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art, (c) Faith Ringgold

She created bold, provocative paintings during the 1960s, directly responding to the Civil Rights and feminist movements. Her explorations of race and gender, which are on view in American People, Black Light, were often unsettling to viewers because of the way they confronted issues of their time.

Faith Ringgold, American People #18: The Flag is Bleedingm 1967; Courtesy of Faith Ringgold and ACA Galleries, (c) Faith Ringgold 1967

She was quoted about American People, Black Light in the Grio, saying that she was “very pleased that this work is getting another chance to be seen . . . and that the American people are getting another chance to take a look at themselves,” Ringgold said in an interview. “Most of that work I still own because people just didn’t want to look at it. They didn’t want to see it.”

The Washington Post described NMWA’s exhibition as “provoking visitors with paintings of enormous size, arresting intimacy and unsettling intensity. [Her paintings] are marked by large, emoting eyes, her signature U-shaped line descending from the eyebrows around the nose, and ‘high-keyed’ blues, reds, and greens, colors that dominate not with brightness, but with depth. It is a style she calls super-realism—one that demands that viewers engage.”

Black Light Series #1: Big Black, 1967; Oil on canvas; Courtesy of Faith Ringgold and ACA Galleries, New York; © Faith Ringgold

Throughout her career, Ringgold has worked to tell the stories of “American People.” She was quoted in the Washingtonian talking about her experiences in the 1960s: “It was a vibrant period—there was a lot of writing, talking about expressing the experience of African-American people,” Ringgold says. “I felt, as I still feel, that artists have the job of documenting their times.”

Have you had a chance to see NMWA’s Faith Ringgold exhibition? It closes this Sunday, November 10, so it’s not too late to learn more and come visit!

—Elizabeth Lynch is the editor at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

In the early 19th century, the education of young upper-class males was capped by a “grand tour,” a traditional trip around Europe that gave them an opportunity to see the world and experience art and culture. Although women were rarely afforded this enlightening opportunity when it was most prevalent, a later exception was artist Ellen Day Hale (1855–1940), who traveled to and throughout Europe and eventually the Middle East—capturing each foreign land with etchings and prints. Drawn from the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the exhibition Wanderer: Travel Prints by Ellen Day Hale brings these prints together, highlighting Hale’s passion for travel and its benefits to her artistic education.

Ellen Day Hale, Early Morning Vegetables, Charleston, South Carolina, ca. 1924; Hand-colored etching on paper; NMWA, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

Ellen Day Hale was born 1855 in Worcester, Massachusetts, into very accomplished family—among other notables, her father was a chaplain of the United States Senate, and her great-aunt Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. As scholars themselves, several of her family members helped foster her early interest in the arts and later enabled her to go abroad. Her aunt Susan Hale, a watercolorist and advocate for women artists, was particularly encouraging. She taught Ellen Day Hale how to draw at a young age and helped her develop artistic skills before she studied under several Boston artists, including William Morris Hunt.

Untitled etching on paper, 1922; NMWA, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

Still, this experience did not complete her artistic training. To further her education, Hale traveled to Paris, studying at the prestigious Académie Julian. This journey, when she first began exploring Europe, took place in 1881 to 1882, but it was the first of many. She would return several times, documenting her trips with intricate artworks.

Hale began etching in 1883, and an etching she created in 1890, First Night in Venice, shows the development of her style. While many of her other works show clear, structured lines, this soft-ground etching captures the dreamy scene of a Baroque church at sunset. She experimented with various printmaking techniques, adding color to the print.

Ellen Day Hale can be seen as a woman artist who was given opportunities not afforded to many other women of her time, showing the huge artistic benefits conferred by freedom, means, and travel. Because she saw the great value of traveling for young artists, she published accounts of Paris in the Boston Traveller newspaper. Her essays focused on an American student’s perspective of Paris, and she encouraged other women to follow in her far-flung footsteps. Hale’s “grand tour” was essential not only to her education, but also helped set a precedent for other young women artists to expand their educations, inspirations, and horizons.

—Diana Wilkinson is the publications and marketing/communications intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Wanderer: Travel Prints by Ellen Day Hale is on view at NMWA through January 5, 2014.

On October 23, 2013, several members of the NMWA Library Fellows met for their 24th annual fall meeting to view the latest winner of the Fellows’ artist’s book award competition, hear the winning artist speak about her process, and enjoy a presentation by a renowned printmaker and book artist, Carolee Campbell, owner of Ninja Press.

Natasha Guruleva presenting Day by Day

Last year, the Library Fellows gathered to vote on over 45 submissions, many of which were outstanding proposals from both emerging and established artists. Day by Day—created by Russian artists Natasha Guruleva and Olga Nenazhivina—was chosen as the year’s winning book. Every edition of Day by Day is unique: front and back covers feature hand-stretched canvas and hand-written verse by Guruleva. Evocative graphic works by Nenazhivina are digitally reproduced throughout the work. A leather clasp “locks” the book, emphasizing its diaristic format.

Day by Day, by Natasha Guruleva and Olga Nenazhivina

Day by Day, along with many other past winners of the Library Fellows competition, is available for purchase in the Museum Shop. Visitors may request to see samples in the shop or the library.

After lunch, book artist Carolee Campbell presented to the group about the sources of her inspiration and why she founded the esteemed Ninja Press.

She also offered fascinating descriptions of a few of the processes used in the three books that she later showed to the group. The Fellows contributed to the purchase of two of her books for NMWA’s collection of artists’ books: The Persephones  and The Real World of Manuel Córdova.

Carolee Campbell giving a presentation about her books to the Library Fellows

Campbell, who is self-taught in the fine art of bookmaking, says it can take months to complete one edition and she typically prints 200 copies or fewer. Specializing in poetry, she has a hand in the entire creative process of her books: she designs, prints, and binds every edition using handset metal type on fine handmade papers, often including her photography and hand-drawn illustrations.

She approaches her work with intuition and an eye to meticulous detail. As she writes on her website: “One of the primary goals set at the inception of the press was to strive toward the highest standards of excellence in craftsmanship and quality while attempting to find new approaches to the union between word, image, and book structure. That aspiration will continue to fuel the inspiration for future edition works as well as one-of-a-kind books.” Her methodology, skill, and creativity lead to stunning, distinguished works that are a wonder to see, read, and touch. Her books are held by most major collections of artists’ books, including the Library of Congress, the British Library, the New York Public Library, the Getty Research Institute, and Stanford University. It was an honor to hear her speak and to see some of her work in person.

—Jennifer Page is the Library Assistant in the Library and Research Center at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Lady with a Bowl of Violets (ca. 1910) has been called one of NMWA’s “best-loved works.” Lilla Cabot Perry (1848–1933) painted this Impressionist portrait of an unknown sitter more than 100 years ago, however, the origins of the painting’s title are still unclear. The descriptive yet simple name presents a complex question: Is the work wrongly titled?

In 1990, NMWA presented one of the first major exhibitions of Perry’s paintings in more than 20 years. As part of that exhibition, former NMWA curators Meredith Martindale and Pamela Moffat published a catalogue that worked to expand the scholarship surrounding Perry beyond her interaction with the Impressionist movement and close friendship with Claude Monet.

Lilla Cabot Perry, Lady With a Bowl of Violets, ca. 1910; NMWA, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

In Lilla Cabot Perry: An American Impressionist, Martindale and Moffat examined Lady with a Bowl of Violets and declared something surprising: the “violets” are not violets at all, but pansies. The scholars note that many of Perry’s works have only been attributed titles in recent years and suggest that in this instance the late designation has “led to a total misrepresentation.”

According to Martindale and Moffat, the titles of many of Perry’s works are missing or ambiguous. The artist’s account book disappeared at some point, often leaving others to guess at dates and titles. The researchers suggest “Perry herself was not consistent . . . and some of her paintings have as many as three different titles during her lifetime.”

The title of Lady with a Bowl of Violets is questioned for several additional reasons relating to the lives of Perry and her husband, Thomas. Perry also wrote poetry; her collection of poems, The Jar of Dreams, includes several pansy references that are noted in the 1990 exhibition catalogue:  “Pansies, white pansies and purple ones/Deep as the love I gave to you, my flower.” Similarly, the catalogue notes Thomas Perry had a similar affinity for the flower. He is quoted: “Pansies are, I think, my favorite flower, they have such a mischievous wink and their colours, especially the purple, touch my heart. . . .” This heartfelt attachment to the flower suggests the current title may indeed miss the mark, as Perry was certainly familiar enough with the flowers to tell them apart.

Further, grounds for a potential mistitling can be revealed through considering the identity of the painting’s sitter. Martindale and Moffat suggest the young woman in Lady with a Bowl of Violets is a professional model. However, when compared to a portrait of Perry’s daughter, Alice in a White Hat (ca. 1904), it is hard to ignore a resemblance. The personal meanings of pansies as well as the possible family relationship between the sitter and artist offer a more intimate understanding of the work—one that could be better understood with a more appropriate title.

However, a biographical and visual analysis does not fully explain how this possible misattribution could have occurred. A scientific review of pansies and violets presents additional elements to consider when deciphering the current title. The “violet” is a term used for the smaller flowering annuals of the viola genus that includes more than 550 different species.  A “pansy” is included within the viola family but refers exclusively to a large-flowering, multi-colored variety.  So, can you tell the difference? Has Ms. Perry presented pansies? Is the title simply the product of an amateur horticulturist? Or does a flower by any other name smell just as sweet?

—J. Rachel Gustafson is a curatorial intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

American artist Ellen Day Hale is best known for her skill as a portrait painter, but a body of prints currently on view at NMWA illuminates her printmaking, often based on themes and scenes she encountered on her travels.

Left: Early Morning Vegetables, Charleston, South Carolina, ca. 1924; Hand-colored etching on paper; Right: A series of etching plates on view includes a plate for Early Morning Vegetables, allowing gallery visitors to see Hale’s preparatory work alongside finished prints

From the crumbling stone of missions on the American West Coast to mountains and cities through Europe, to local people in Egypt, South Carolina, and Normandy, Hale’s work demonstrates her keen observations of lives and landscapes.

Milk Delivery, Cairo, 1930; Soft-ground etching with aquatint on paper

From a prominent Massachusetts family, Hale (1855–1940) was afforded opportunities—training, travel, and independence—that were still rare for a woman of her time. Her family encouraged her artistic education as well as the early travels that allowed her to see the great art and cities of Europe. This beginning seems to have sparked a lifetime love of travel: Hale’s journeys through America, Europe, and the Middle East provided fodder for drawings, paintings, and prints.

On view through January 5, Wanderer: Travel Prints by Ellen Day Hale features original prints, plates, sketches, and preparatory work. The exhibition provides a window into a intriguing time for women artists traveling their world.

—Elizabeth Lynch is the editor at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.