h Mag WOMEN Proof

THE
MUSEUM
O F
FINE ARTS,
HOUSTON
MAGAZINE
Women
01

THE THE
MUSEUM MUSEUM
O F O F
FINE FINE ARTS ARTS , ,
HOUSTON
HOUSTON
MAGAZINE
02 Welcome
02 Welcome
04 Backstory
04 Backstory
10 Surfacing
10 Surfacing
16 Series 16 Series
Women Women
Issue 21 Issue / 202121 / 2021
20 Object 20 Object Lesson Lesson
22 Portfolio
22 Portfolio
36 Profile 36 Profile
40 Up 40 Close Up Close
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42 Five 42 Minutes Five Minutes With With
44 In 44 the In Mix the Mix
46 Exhibition 46 Exhibition Funders Funders
47 Credits 47 Credits
48 Coming 48 Coming Soon Soon

Women’s Work
This issue of h Magazine features groundbreaking female artists from the Museum’s collection, inspired by
two special exhibitions this season, Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock and Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer.
Both of these independent-minded women developed captivating bodies of work. Amaral created woven
sculptures that challenged the conventions of the loom, and O’Keeffe, known for her evocative paintings
of flowers and the Southwest, explored photography in the later part of her life. Although women’s artistic
contributions have been historically overlooked, recognition of their achievements in more recent years
has expanded the canon of art, even as our definitions of gender are also expanding.
The photograph seen here by Carrie Mae Weems (born 1953) is one of 20 from her Kitchen Table
Series, in which the artist herself portrays the lead figure in the unfolding narrative. Weems has said,
“I use my own constructed image as a vehicle for questioning ideas about the role of tradition, the nature
of family, monogamy, polygamy, relationships between men and women, between women and their
children, and between women and other women.” To learn more about Weems and this work, see
pages 16–19.
01

G A R Y T I N T E R O W , D I R E C T O R
T H E M A R G A R E T A L K E K W I L L I A M S C H A I R
T H E M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , H O U S T O N
Women
To a degree exceptional among American art museums, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, owes
its existence and strength to the inspiration and leadership of women.
W E L C O M E
The Museum traces its foundation to the Houston Public School Art League, created by a group
of local women in 1900 to bring art education to public schools. Many of those women presided
over the opening of our first building in 1924, and that building was quickly furnished with objects
obtained from around the world by collectors such as Annette Finnegan, Sarah Campbell Blaffer,
and Ima Hogg. After the Second World War, new generations of collectors, including Dominique
de Menil, Audrey Jones Beck, Oveta Culp Hobby, and Caroline Wiess Law, enriched the
Museum’s collections and helped lift our small, regional enterprise to a museum of national,
and, later, international significance.
02
Unlike other American museums, our Board of Trustees has often consisted of more women than
men, as it does now, and we have benefitted from the leadership of three exemplary chairwomen:
Alice Pratt Brown, Isabel Brown Wilson, and Cornelia Cullen Long. For nearly 50 years the
Museum’s curatorial efforts have been guided by exceptional, visionary women, such as Barbara
Rose, Anne Wilkes Tucker, Alvia Wardlaw, and Frances Marzio. Today, all but four of our twelve
curatorial department heads are women.
It goes without saying that our curators and collectors have ushered marvelous works of art by
women into our galleries and exhibitions. I am delighted that a number of them are brought to
your attention in this issue of h Magazine.
Yours sincerely,
A Modern Woman
Grey Lines with Black, Blue and Yellow (c. 1923) by Georgia
O’Keeffe (1887–1986) is an evocative abstraction, recalling the
interior of a flower and other seductive forms. Hailed by many
as the “mother of American Modernism,” O’Keeffe once said,
“I found I could say things with colors and shapes that I couldn’t
say any other way—things I had no words for.”

03
48 x 30”

The works shown here are among those featured in Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer, on view October 17, 2021, through January 23, 2022,
in the Upper Brown Pavilion of the Caroline Wiess Law Building. The exhibition presents approximately 90 photographs created by O’Keeffe,
along with comparative paintings and drawings, demonstrating the artist’s consistent vision across media.
Georgia O’Keef fe,
Photographer
BY LISA VOLPE
ASSOCIATE CURATOR, PHOTOGRAPHY
The elevator opened into the vault located several floors below the
museum. As I entered the space, I could not help but marvel at how
the brightly lit and beautifully organized climate-controlled storage at
the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, echoed the
precise and fastidious nature of O’Keeffe’s own home and famous
works of art. It seems that most things that bear O’Keeffe’s name
also reflect her signature formalism. I arrived in Santa Fe in October
2017 to view the approximately 200 photographs loosely attributed
to O’Keeffe. Yes, photographs by O’Keeffe, not of her. Over the
course of several hours in the vault, it became clear that O’Keeffe’s
photographic practice was more artistically conscious and formally
measured than had been assumed. It was also evident that these
small black-and-white prints—perhaps even more than her famous
paintings and drawings, her home, or her museum—provided the
most direct and compelling vision of O’Keeffe’s world and her unique
artistic practice.
There have been many exhibitions celebrating the art and life of
O’Keeffe, and there have been unconventional investigations too—
of her clothing, her library, her home. Yet, despite the close scholarly
attention, there has never been an exploration of O’Keeffe’s work as
a photographer. After that initial introduction at the Georgia O’Keeffe
Museum, I spent the next three years analyzing nearly every available
element of O’Keeffe’s life and work for possible connections
to her photography. O’Keeffe’s prolific correspondence, housed at
the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and the Michael S.
Engl Family Foundation Library and Archive at the Georgia O’Keeffe
Museum, not only provided insight into her photographic practice
but also enabled the creation of a detailed timeline of the artist’s
travels, visitors, and house renovations, the arrival and passing of
pets, the reception of photographers sent to capture her likeness
(such as Todd Webb, who took the photo opposite), and her personal
interests that helped to identify and date her photographs from the
mid-1950s until the early 1970s.
The dates are significant. Though O’Keeffe’s husband, the photographer
Alfred Stieglitz, certainly had a significant influence on her
relationship with photography, O’Keeffe did not begin photographing
regularly until after Stieglitz’s death in 1946. A few photographs do
date to her time in Hawaii in the late-1930s. In 1939 O’Keeffe accepted
an invitation to Hawaii from the advertising company N. W. Ayer and
Son to produce paintings for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company.
On the island of Maui, O’Keeffe borrowed a camera and photographed
the distinct landscape that she encountered. These “Hawaii Snaps,”
as she called them, are the first glimpse of O’Keeffe’s unique use of
the camera. Most of the artist’s extant photographs were produced
decades later, but the images exhibit the same artistic approach
as those made in Hawaii, one that was wholly her own. By the time
O’Keeffe began photographing in earnest in 1956, photography was
firmly on the path to artistic acceptance. Its cultural position had
transformed since her involvement, alongside Stieglitz, in its promotion.
Stieglitz had become a major figurehead in the medium’s history by
the late 1950s and was crowned the father of modernist photography.
Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, O’Keeffe was plagued
with requests from scholars writing books, graduate students preparing
theses, and emerging photographers—all seeking her memories
as stand-ins for Stieglitz’s guidance. Always protective of her privacy
and uninterested in their repetitive questions, she turned most away.
From 1949 to 1953, she transferred their correspondence to the
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, stipulating
that it be sealed until 20 years following her death. She granted
very few exceptions. At the same time, she gave away all of her copies
of Camera Work, Stieglitz’s famous journal featuring both avantgarde
art and photography. Despite these impediments, scholarship
proliferated, as did a new, analogous generation of photographers.
Together, these institutions, scholars, and practitioners established
the contemporary boundaries of photography as art, stressing the
subjectivity of the artist, the uniqueness of the photographic image,
B A C K S T O R Y
05
14 x 11”

A Focus on Flowers
O’Keeffe captured the white flowers
of jimsonweed in both photographs
and paintings. She once commented,
“When you take a flower in your hand
and really look at it, it’s your world for
the moment. I want to give that world
to someone else. Most people in the
city rush around so, they have no time
to look at a flower. I want them to see
it whether they want to or not.”
B A C K S T O R Y
06
4 1/4 x 3 3/8”
4 x 6”
and the importance of the print. Just as O’Keeffe put off scholars of art photography, she eschewed their
defined artistic concerns and intentions when she picked up the camera. Her particular form of modernism,
after all, was one fully liberated from any strictures and centered in her own vision. Unsurprisingly then,
O’Keeffe approached photography in a manner that did not align with contemporary art photography. Both
theory and technique were ignored in favor of a formal dialogue with the elements and landscape she had
come to know.
O’Keeffe turned to the camera to revisit subjects she painted years before, all in an effort to realize a
perfect arrangement of forms. The landforms of the Southwest, the black door in her courtyard, the
winding road outside her window, and of course flowers (seen above), were all put before her lens. O’Keeffe’s
photographs not only provide firsthand depictions of her world but also demonstrate her signature
artistic approach, providing small glimpses into the artist’s mind at work and emphasizing her formal and
expressive interests. As the scholar Wanda Corn aptly noted in her June 2009 article for American Art,

“It is O’Keeffe the person who has the quotidian experience, but it is
O’Keeffe the painter who transforms it into a timeless work of art.” As
Corn suggests, anyone with a camera could capture an image of the
New Mexican landscape, but only O’Keeffe could translate the scene
into a photographic symphony of balanced elements representative
of her life and art.
The signature formalism of O’Keeffe’s photographs is easily identifiable
because it also characterizes her paintings and drawings.
Almost all her photographs demonstrate some type of “reframing.”
To create them, she moved around her locations, reframing her subjects
or changing the format from horizontal to vertical. Using the
camera to try out different compositions, O’Keeffe produced photos
that varied slightly in composition but resulted in major differences in
tone and affect. This technique can be traced to O’Keeffe’s mentor,
Arthur Wesley Dow. The painter Max Weber, another student of
Dow’s, described one of the master’s teaching methods: “[Dow] would
come into the class and make an unbounded drawing of trees and
hills or perhaps a winding road against the sky. Then he would ask
the class to copy the drawing freely and enclose it in a rectangle, to
make a horizontal picture or a vertical . . . to balance the drawing by
making less foreground, or more sky, to change the masses, and what
not.” Small shifts could radically change a composition, and O’Keeffe
embraced this possibility. Photographs of her salita door (like the
one below) were created from different, strategic positions. She
would practice this “reframing” throughout her career, in her paintings,
drawings, and in her photographs.
O’Keeffe also depended on the effects of light and shade to reframe
her photographs. Although O’Keeffe’s commitment to reframing her
photographic images is chiefly rooted in the teachings of Dow, her
fixation on and artistic treatment of light is principally her own. She
wrote in her 1976 Viking Press text, “My first memory is of the brightness
of light—light all around.” Light was a key element in O’Keeffe’s
art, and one that she paid particular attention to in her photographs.
During a 1964 trip to Lake Powell near the Utah–Arizona border, she
made a series of Polaroids (see pages 8–9) that tracked the sunrise
on Forbidding Canyon, the shadow and light creating different shapes
on the rock face. Closer to home, she picked up her camera at
different times of day, capturing the shifting light and shadow as
distinct shapes that would alter the overall form of her compositions.
O’Keeffe photographed in different seasons, relying upon nature’s
cycle to aid in the creation of new compositions. O’Keeffe herself led
a “seasonal existence”—whether it was defined by the cycle of the
teaching year in Virginia or Texas in the 1910s, the pattern of summer
life at Lake George, or her migration from New Mexico to New York
nearly each year for 20 years. Even after her permanent relocation
to New Mexico in 1949, she moved from her Abiquiú home to Ghost
07

08
Each: 4 1/4 x 3 3/8”
Ranch during the summer months, following the cycle of the seasons.
This interest in seasons is evident in her art. From full spring
blossoms to linear bare tree branches, the shifting angle of light
annually, and the dusting of snow in winter—seen in Road from
Abiquiú (1964–68, opposite, bottom)—or the packed dirt earth in
summer, these elements naturally changed the landscape around
her, nature’s own version of reframing, and she captured these
changes in her works of art.
These interrelated devices that distinguish her photographs—
reframing, rendering light as form, and depicting seasonal change—
can be traced throughout O’Keeffe’s career across media. O’Keeffe
adopted photography in her constant search for expression, capturing
the familiar elements of her world in a manner aligned with her larger
practice. The consistency of her artistic vision is plain not only in her
paintings and drawings but also in her approach to photography.
These formal strategies, evident in her photographs and echoed
in her other works of art, are the focus of the exhibition Georgia
O’Keeffe, Photographer.
Until now, photography was considered part of O’Keeffe’s story by
way of her extant portraits, as a kind of influence, or through its link
to her friends, mentors, or husband. Few art historians—let alone
members of the public—even know that O’Keeffe made photographs.
The exhibition and accompanying catalogue introduce O’Keeffe’s
photographic work to the world. Inevitably, more photographs will
be discovered and new research will commence. Georgia O’Keeffe,
Photographer is intended as a foundation for future scholarship on
Georgia O’Keeffe’s photographic work, encouraging new insights into
her artistic vision, and expanding the scope of her artistic career.
This text has been excerpted and adapted from the exhibition
catalogue Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer. © 2021 The Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston, and Yale University Press, New Haven and London

BACKSTORY
09
3 3/8 x 4 1/4”
The Road Home
In this photograph, O’Keeffe captures
the wintery view outside of her Abiquiú
window. The yellow streaks on some of her
images are the result of her misapplication
of the Polaroid coating. O’Keeffe’s interest
in photography was in the composition,
rather than the final print—at times leading
to imprecision in the printing process.

Impressionist
Women
S U R F A C I N G
10
25 1/4 x 20 7/8”
In 1874 a group of avant-garde artists who would eventually be known
as the Impressionists held their first of eight exhibitions independent
of the officially sanctioned Salons in France. Some critics dismissed
the artists’ loose brushwork, light palette, and subject matter as too
“feminine,” but despite these gendered readings, the Impressionists
were primarily men. Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) was the lone woman
artist to exhibit in that initial watershed show, and only two others,
Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) and Marie Bracquemond (1840–1916),
would be included in any of the group’s subsequent exhibitions.
Although their choices were limited by social expectations and the
lack of professional opportunities afforded to women in the late
19th century, Morisot and Cassatt, in particular, would ultimately be
considered Impressionist luminaries.
Born only four years apart, Morisot and Cassatt began their careers
following traditional academic paths and exhibiting at established
venues like the Salon, in the case of Morisot, a Frenchwoman, and the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, for the American-born Cassatt.
Though their paths crossed many times, they first exhibited together
only in 1881, at the sixth Impressionist exhibition. Their success came
at a time when women faced virtually insurmountable obstacles
in establishing professional careers. They were bolstered by their formidable
talent, fortunate financial independence, and connections
with two influential male Impressionist artists: Morisot with Édouard
Manet, and Cassatt with Edgar Degas.
Morisot is known today primarily as a portraitist and painter of
domestic scenes. Her early works mostly reflect her own family
situation, a world dominated by her mother and filled with sisters,
nieces, and female friends—all inhabiting elegant interiors and
pursuing feminine occupations. But Morisot also used professional
models, depicting them at their toilette or dressed in sumptuous ball
gowns, her sketchy brushwork beautifully expressive of the sitters’
contemplative mood and only hinting at the fashionable, more
superficial details.
When Édouard Manet, the acknowledged leader of modern
painting, was introduced to Morisot in 1868, it was the beginning of an
intense artistic and personal relationship. He was fascinated by her
beauty and immediately asked her to pose for him for The Balcony.
Numerous portraits of Morisot followed, but Manet not only saw her
as a model but also recognized her talent as painter. His admiration
gave Morisot great confidence in her work. Their families developed
a deep friendship, culminating in the marriage between Morisot and
Édouard’s younger brother Eugène. The union allowed Morisot to
continue painting. Although she used her maiden name professionally,
she was known legally and socially as Madame Manet.
The birth of her daughter, Julie, in late 1878 had a major impact on
Morisot’s oeuvre. She became less interested in working with
professional models, concentrating instead almost entirely on Julie,
who literally grew up in front of her mother’s easel. Julie made her
first appearance as a baby in her nurse’s arms and is seen in
Morisot’s paintings at every stage of childhood, including as a
teenager in the pastel portrait Young Woman Reading (Portrait of
Julie Manet in Gorey) (1886, opposite). Julie’s portraits document
Morisot’s stylistic changes. Shifting from a high Impressionist style,
characterized by short, flickering brushwork, her art became
increasingly fluid, with longer brushstrokes, and finally evolved into a
style influenced by Auguste Renoir, as seen in Women in the Garden
(Villa Arnulphi in Nice) (1882, see page 12). In her final works, outlines
became more emphasized and details were subsumed by her
sweeping, broad brushstrokes. Morisot died prematurely at the age
of 54, having contracted influenza while nursing Julie through
her own illness.
Around the same time that Morisot was introduced to Manet,
Cassatt left the United States for Europe intent on developing
her career in a more modern idiom. Born into a prosperous
Pittsburgh-area family, she had spent many years of her childhood
in Europe, returning in 1866 and settling permanently in Paris in

These works by Berthe Morisot are included in Impressionism to Modernism: Monet to Matisse from the Bemberg Foundation, on view in Galleries 201, 203–207 of
the Audrey Jones Beck Building through September 19, 2021. The works by Mary Cassatt (as well as those by many other pioneering women artists, such as
Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Agnes Martin, and Joan Mitchell) can be seen in Three Centuries of American Art – Antiquities, European and American
Masterpieces from The Fayez S. Sarofim Collection, on view in the Upper Brown Pavilion of the Caroline Wiess Law Building through September 6, 2021.
11

12
28 3/8 x 24 3/8”

1874. Distinguished as the only American to exhibit with the French
Impressionists in four of their eight exhibitions, she became a close
friend of Degas, whose style influenced her greatly. In her paintings,
she focused principally on women, frequently engaged in domestic
activities and caring for children. As in Morisot’s works, family, friends,
and servants often figure prominently in her closely observed
scenes. The settings of Cassatt’s paintings are typically her own
privileged surroundings: refined Parisian interiors or private gardens.
In Woman and Child Seated in a Garden (c. 1894, below), a young
woman sits with a small child dressed in blue in a manicured garden.
Revealing her intimate understanding of children’s curiosity,
Cassatt depicts the toddler engrossed in something gathered
from the garden as the caregiver looks on. Painted en plein air,
the summary forms and the banded areas of color, especially in the
landscape, along with the rapid brushwork give the impression of a
spontaneously observed scene.
Maternal subjects dominated Cassatt’s oeuvre during her mature
period, and her interest in them coincided with developments in the
concern for child welfare and education during the late 19th century.
Avoiding the sentimentality that distinguished most Victorian images
of mothers and children, Cassatt’s compositions focus on the
pedagogic role that mothers and other caregivers play, while still
showing tenderness.
In In the Park (c. 1894, see page 14), Cassatt depicts a young
woman, most likely a caregiver, in a polka-dot dress sitting on a
garden bench and gazing tenderly at the young charge on her lap. The
shallowness of the picture plane and the angle of the bench create
a modernist space, placing greater focus on the figures. In a further
expression of her avant-garde style, Cassatt painted broad areas of
solid colors, thereby emphasizing the flattened forms and the overall
compression of space, especially in the garden.
Early in her career, Cassatt used pastel exclusively for sketching,
but after she joined the Impressionists, who renewed the popularity
of the medium, she began producing finished works in pastel. Although
she was influenced by Degas’s technique, she also developed her own
unique pastel style, which evolved over her career and highlighted her
fine draftsmanship. Cassatt exploited pastel’s versatile properties to
create a sense of immediacy in her simple, direct portraits, especially
of children. In the fall of 1898, after a 25-year absence, Cassatt visited
the United States, where she had become as well known as she was in
her adopted home, and while there, produced many pastel portraits of
the children of friends and relatives.
During the latter part of her career, Cassatt continued to focus
on the themes that brought her fame: modern women and maternal
subjects. In Antoinette at Her Dressing Table (1909, see page 15),
Cassatt, using a simple but rich and darker palette characteristic
SURFACING
13
16 3/4 x 23 1/4”

S U R F A C I N G
14
30 x 36”
of her later works, portrays a young woman sitting at her toilette.
Wearing a green dress under an elaborate purple dressing gown, the
woman gazes into a handheld mirror while smoothing her coiffed hair.
In contrast to the narcissistic and suggestive connotations of similar
scenes produced by other Impressionists and the Old Masters, this
painting presents a modern vision of a woman—the irrepressible
female presence conveys a sense of self-discovery and selfconsciousness.
Cassatt continued to work until 1915, when vision
issues rendered painting impossible.
Morisot and Cassatt captured images of women and children
of the age in their most tender moments and private spaces. Their
modern approach and style, characterized by a luminous palette and
loose, fluid brushwork, highlighted the spontaneity of their closely
observed scenes and subjects. Although their professional opportunities
were often limited by their gender, these two artists contributed
to the development of the modern image of women in a way that their
male Impressionist counterparts could not, precisely because their
gender offered them intimate access, familiarity, and kinship with
their subjects.
The text on Mary Cassatt in this essay was written by Kaylin H. Weber
and has been excerpted and adapted from the exhibition catalogue
Masterpieces from the Fayez S. Sarofim Collection: From Antiquity
to Abstraction. © 2020 The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

15
36 1/4 x 28 1/2”

A Seat at
the Table
Kitchen Table Series by Carrie Mae Weems (born 1953) is not only
one of the most important works of photography of the last quarter
century but also one of the most iconic works by a contemporary
African American artist. During her nearly 50-year career, Weems
has worked with photography, text, fabric, audio, digital images, and
installation video, earning her recognition, accolades, and numerous
awards, including a MacArthur “Genius Grant” in 2013. Best known
for her photography that explores universal themes of love, family,
and friendship, as well as racism and sexism, Weems has exhibited
widely and was the first African American woman to receive a
retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in 2014.
In 1989–90, Weems set up a camera in her Massachusetts
apartment and photographed herself daily, casting herself in the role
of an ordinary, unnamed fictional Black woman and her neighbors
as supporting cast members. In Kitchen Table Series, a narrative
unfolds in 20 black-and-white photographs (four of which are shown
here)—all set in the same sparse room around a dining table—that
show the woman as she navigates evolving relationships with her
male partner, her girlfriends, her daughter, and finally, herself.
Although Weems portrays the protagonist, she explains that the
woman “is a character. . . . I use my body as a stand-in, but I never
think of it as being about me. Rather, the character helps to reveal
something that is more complicated about the lives of women.”
The first six photographs chronicle a relationship between the
woman and her lover—initially playful and tender, then turning cold
and distant. In the following scene, the woman sits alone, balled up
on a chair, with a bottle of wine at her side and a telephone looming in
the foreground. The next few photographs show the woman with two
girlfriends as they comfort and commiserate, then laugh together.
In the next set, the woman educates her young daughter—intellectually
with textbooks, physically with cosmetics, and socially with girlfriends.
The last four frames capture the woman alone, appearing stronger,
bolder, and more confident, in scenarios that suggest fulfillment
and satisfaction.
The kitchen table and a conical overhead light fixture remain
constant throughout the series, but a small, shifting assembly of
props give subtle clues—a caged bird, a Malcolm X poster—that
reference issues of racial injustice in America. Interspersed among
the photographs are 14 text panels that Weems wrote detailing the
beginning of a romance, its ordeals, and the bitter ending in a lyrical,
stream-of-consciousness narrative.
In two photographs, the woman confronts the viewer. In the first
frame of the series, as the man looks at the woman, she eyes the
camera, letting viewers know she is aware of their presence. The other
instance occurs in the first image of the last section (see page 1). The
woman stands, both of her hands on the table, leans forward, and
looks boldly into the camera, as if to say: I see you. She metaphorically
flips the table, and the viewer becomes the subject.
The everyday normality of the narrative is what makes the series
timeless and profound—and audacious. By showing that a Black
woman could represent experiences that touch all of humanity,
Weems’s gender and racial status become the very foundation of
her narrative, and thus the series gains significance, representing one
of the most direct and important artistic expressions of African
American womanhood.
S E R I E S
17
Each platinum print:
20 x 20”
Body Conscious
Before turning to photography in the early 1970s, Weems
performed in a San Francisco dance company established by
Anna Halprin, a pioneer of postmodern dance. Women’s bodies
in action, particularly her own, feature prominently in her work.
She has said, “It’s very important for me to really use this body
as a barometer of a certain kind of knowledge—to take the
personal risk of exposing my own body in a certain kind of way.”

Female Lead
In Kitchen Table Series, 20 photographs and 14 texts present
the story of a woman, as conceived and portrayed by Carrie
Mae Weems. The kitchen table provides an intimate setting for
a shifting cast of characters, highlighting the woman’s various
roles as lover, mother, friend, and—above all—herself.
S E R I E S
18
Each platinum print:
20 x 20”
Each text sheet: 11 x 11”

19

Making History
O B J E C T L E S S O N
20
25 1/8 x 35 7/8”
Considered a prodigy at a young age, Angelica Kauffmann’s (1741–1807) artistic success was unusual
for a female in the 18th century, even considering her remarkable talent. Born to a muralist and painter
father and a mother of noble birth, Kauffmann received training in her youth that would help her navigate
an artistic world dominated by men. From her mother, she learned multiple languages, which would aid
in developing a career across Europe. Her father trained Kauffmann as his assistant, and she started
painting commissioned portraits in her early teens. She assisted her father and frequently moved for his
work, especially after her mother died, from her native Switzerland, to Austria, Italy, and London, which
granted Kauffmann access to experiences and resources typically unavailable to females. In Naples, she
studied the works of Old Masters; in Florence, she was introduced to Neoclassicism, a style she would
adopt; in Rome, she made important contacts with British tourists; and in London, she painted portraits
for royalty and the luminaries of the day. She became one of the highest-paid portrait artists of the time,
rivaling her friend and colleague Sir Joshua Reynolds. By all accounts, she charmed society, gaining
important contacts and forming alliances with royalty and advocates who gave her commissions and
helped shield her from scandal.
But her gender continued to be an impediment in the professional art world, as she strove to be
considered a history painter, as opposed to merely a portraitist. At the time, history painting—
representing human action on a large scale and according to themes from history, mythology, literature,
and scripture—was the most elite and lucrative field, inaccessible to women. Women were generally
discouraged from gaining the vast knowledge required to excel in this genre and were barred from learning
anatomy—a requisite skill—by observing live nude models. Kauffmann’s Ariadne Abandoned by Theseus
(1774) shows how she sidestepped the latter hindrance.
In Greek mythology, Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos of Crete, falls in love with the hero Theseus.
After he defeats the part-man, part-bull Minotaur, a ball of string left by Ariadne helps Theseus wind
his way out of the monster’s labyrinth. The pair escape to the island of Naxos. Kauffmann captures the
moment of distress when an awakening Ariadne realizes Theseus has deserted her, indicated by a departing
ship on the horizon.
Unable to use a live model, Kauffmann based her heroine’s pose on her studies of a famous
ancient marble statue (popularly called Cleopatra, but later known to represent Ariadne) from the
Vatican’s art collection. Kauffmann used this tale and this pose in a number of works. However, here
she alters the statue’s gesture—outstretched arms and upward-tilted hands spotlight and heighten the
drama. Also unique to this painting, a box of jewels at Ariadne’s side possibly alludes to events after
Theseus’s flight. Bacchus arrives and, to console Ariadne, he flings her jeweled crown into the sky,
creating a constellation. They later marry.
The work, one of Kauffmann’s few history paintings to feature a single figure, was exhibited in 1774
at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. As in her well-regarded portraits, Kauffmann’s use of rich,
subdued colors and attention to details—the gossamer gown embellished with gold, the tousled hair,
the fringed coral blanket—reveal her expertise.
In 1782 she moved back to Rome and continued her illustrious, nearly 50-year career that earned her
wealth, prestige, and a place in art history for her exquisite portraits and broad range of history paintings.

• A ship on the horizon
indicates Theseus’s
departure.
• Unable to use live models
because of her gender,
Kauffmann based this
pose on an ancient marble
statue of Ariadne.
• The artist changed the
statue’s pose to include
a more theatrical hand
gesture.
• Kauffmann excelled at
capturing the drapes,
folds, and details of
costumes, making her
a popular portraitist.
• A box of jewels presages
the arrival of Bacchus, the
god of wine.

A C R O S S T H E C O L L E C T I O N S
Great Women Artists
In a review of Louise Nevelson’s 1941 exhibition, a male critic wrote, “We learned the artist is a woman,
in time to check our enthusiasm. Had it been otherwise, we might have hailed these sculptural expressions
as by surely a great figure among moderns.” Thirty years later, Linda Nochlin demonstrated in her
seminal essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” that institutional obstacles prevented
women from achieving the same artistic success as men. Nochlin’s brilliantly argued text finally catalyzed
the art world to confront this systemic sexism, a project that continues to this day. Pioneering women
artists are well represented in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; a selection of these
“greats” are profiled in this issue, laying the groundwork for generations to come.
P O R T F O L I O
22
14 x 11 1/8”
1867
With a soft focus and long exposures that
registered her sitters’ slight movements, the
British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron
(1815–1879) instilled her portrait photographs
with an uncommon sense of breath and life.
“I believe in other than mere conventional
topographic photography—map-making
and skeleton rendering of feature and form,”
she wrote. A close friend of Pre-Raphaelite
painters, Cameron often photographed
her female friends, servants, and relatives
dressed as literary, historical, or biblical
characters. Here, she presents her adopted
daughter Cyllena Wilson as Rosalba, the
young bride torn between duty and desire in
Sir Henry Taylor’s play The Virgin Widow.

1898
Suzanne Valadon (1865–1938) was not known for
pretty pictures. Her art expressed a sharpness of
observation, forms vigorously rendered in bold
outlines and vivid coloration. Raised in poverty
in Paris, she was a popular model for artists,
including Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec. Encouraged by Edgar Degas,
she later became a serious painter in her own
right. This self-portrait (purportedly a gift to
her lover, the composer Erik Satie), is painted
with a kind of brutality that leaves her image
uncompromisingly exposed, while revealing little
of what lies behind the artist’s cold stare.
23
15 3/4 x 10 1/2”

1821
Anna Claypoole Peale (1791–1878), one of the few professional women
artists in 19th-century America, produced more than 200 miniature
portraits throughout her career, including two of American presidents,
among other notable figures. As the daughter of the painter and
miniaturist James Peale and the niece of Charles Willson Peale,
patriarch of the famed artistic family, she was perhaps destined
to become an artist. This beautifully rendered miniature depicting
Susa Orcutt Bates demonstrates why Peale’s skills were in high
demand—keen attention to the sitter’s pensive expression as well
as to the details of the delicate collar and colorful shawl.
24
3 1/8 x 2 5/8”
17 1/2 x 7” diam.
1900
Born in Texas, Harriet Coulter Joor (1875–1965) graduated
in the first ceramics class of Newcomb College in New
Orleans in 1895. Embodying the Arts and Crafts principles
of Newcomb College Pottery, this vase shows Joor’s flair
for linear, flowing design in the green leaves and stems
that sweep up the vase to a ring of bold blossoms. Joor
became a leading proponent of the American Arts and
Crafts movement in a successful, wide-ranging career as
a designer of ceramics and textiles, an arts instructor, a
professor, and a writer for publications such as Gustav
Stickley’s The Craftsman.

P O R T F O L I O
25
115 x 112 1/2”
1846–50
This remarkable Baltimore Album Quilt displays the
collaborative efforts of a number of women, as evidenced
by the signatures or initials of six individuals. Made popular
in Baltimore in the 1840s–50s, such quilts are recognizable
for their elaborately appliquéd blocks depicting fruit and
flower baskets, cornucopias, and patriotic symbols. This
quilt features a red “Lone Star” commemorating Texas
gaining statehood in 1845. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
bought this quilt from the American artist Elie Nadelman
in 1932, and it was included in an exhibition of her own folk
art collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York
that year.

P O R T F O L I O
26
15 3/4 x 11 3/4”
1935–36
By combining and collaging various photographic elements, the French
Surrealist artist Dora Maar (1907–1997) evokes the realm of dreams and
nightmares. In the foreground, the body of a woman lies at the edge of
the sea, hinting at a liminal state between life and death. At the end
of the arched passageway, Maar added a stormy sky, transforming the
Romanesque cloister into a tunnel to the beyond.

27
25 1/4 x 7 x 9 1/4”
2014
A pioneering figure among California artists, Betye Saar (born 1926) creates visual narratives through
found objects as “the struggle of memory against the attraction of forgetting.” With Weight of
Persistent Racism (Manufactured in the U.S.A.), she addresses the toxic legacy of segregationist Jim
Crow laws, as a black crow weighs down upon a clock and two scales. Saar explains, “It was inspired by
the recent events of violence against Black people . . . this is how I can vent my anger and frustration.
I used the scale as a physical object to determine that weight, how it just won’t go away.”

28
117 3/4 x 210 1/2 x 21”

1969
In 1969, spotlights filled the Museum’s Cullinan Hall,
illuminating monumental works by the American
sculptor Louise Nevelson (1899–1988). Mirror Image I
stood at center, its clean modernism echoing that of
its installation space, designed by Ludwig Mies van
der Rohe. At a time when women artists were rarely
granted solo exhibitions, the Museum’s survey of
Nevelson’s work—much like the artist herself—was
groundbreaking. While many of her male colleagues
pursued large-scale metal sculpture, Nevelson, who
deemed herself “the original recycler,” turned to
repurposed wood. Paving the way for the feminist
art movement, Nevelson’s signature dark tones and
shadowy voids, culturally presumed masculine,
challenged the archetype of “women’s art.”
P O R T F O L I O
29

1964
Though later known for her sculptures, Eva Hesse (1936–1970) began her artistic practice with a
focus on abstract paintings, drawings, and prints. The American artist created No Title by composing
a graphite framework, then applying thick gouache and ink layers to create animated, biomorphic
forms in vibrant color. Yet this free-form abstraction gains structure—perhaps foreshadowing her
investigations in Post-Minimalist sculpture. Hesse, one of few women working in Post-Minimalism,
defended her work as feminine but without a self-consciously feminist agenda. “The way to beat
discrimination in art is by art,” Hesse stated in a 1970 Woman’s Art Journal interview. “Excellence
has no sex.”
P O R T F O L I O
30
Sheet:
19 1/2 x 25 1/2”

1992
Plagued by tumultuous childhood memories, Louise Bourgeois
(1911–2010) used her work to address issues of gender, anxiety,
loneliness, sex, and pain. “Whatever she was feeling, she would say it
in the material that best said it,” Jerry Gorovoy, Bourgeois’s longtime
assistant, explained. For Ste Sébastienne, Bourgeois employed the
intimate printmaking technique of drypoint, using a needle to scratch
into metal. The artist depicts a female version of Saint Sebastian, the
early Christian patron saint and martyr who was tied to a tree and shot
with arrows. In this emblematic self-portrait, Bourgeois likened the
arrows seen here to the harsh criticisms she received from her father.
31
38 5/8 x 30 7/8”
13 1/2 x 11 x 2 1/4”
1989
Joyce J. Scott’s (born 1948) pioneering narrative jewelry tackles issues
of race, violence, gender, and class struggles in the African American
community. Scott began using beads and the peyote stitch technique
in 1973 after working with Native American and African artists at
the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. These cultures pervade her
artwork, which includes jewelry, sculpture, and performance. “The
Sneak” Necklace depicts an act of domestic violence between the
male and female figures, while three gossiping figures lurk in the back.
When the necklace is worn, the wearer becomes an accomplice or
witness to the scene.

32
28 x 18 x 18”
70 x 53 x 7 7/8”
c. 1954
Ruth Asawa (1926–2013) is one of the
premier fiber sculptors of the mid-20th
century. Captivated by a woven basket
that she saw in Mexico, Asawa began
experimenting with the form, creating
hanging sculptures that balance a number
of artistic principles: transparency, positive/
negative space, movement, and line. Elegant
and ethereal, her wire sculptures belie their
complexity. As a Japanese American, she
faced internment along with her family
during World War II. She later studied at
Black Mountain College with the influential
Josef Albers. Throughout her illustrious
career, she passionately championed
access to arts education.
2015
“We have lost our ability to mourn,” says the Colombian artist Doris
Salcedo (born 1958), who explores death and grief resulting from
violence and political oppression. “I want my work to play the role of
funeral oration, honoring this life.” Composed of more than 15,000
needles, Disremembered IV is based on a sambenito, a penitential
garment worn during the Spanish Inquisition, and addresses the
Colombian civil war, commemorating the “disappeared” by focusing
on the suffering of their survivors. The shroud-like form expresses
both a fragile state and layers of pain, as well as societal indifference
to private sorrow and mourning.

2002
The Norwegian artist Tone Vigeland
(born 1938) first trained as a silversmith
and jeweler and became well known for
her hand-forged metal jewelry with fluid
designs. In the late 1990s, she began
making grid-based and geometric sculptural
compositions. For Wall Piece I, Vigeland
encased the ends of 420 steel rods in a
clay mold, wrapped the mold in lead, and
beat them by hand, giving each end an
individualized texture. The weight of the
lead bends the rods downward, like cattails
stooped over in a fierce wind. Vigeland has
stated that nature serves as inspiration.
P O R T F O L I O
33
2009
Sherin Guirguis’s works map a global
landscape by blending, synthesizing, and
reimagining visual expressions drawn from
her Egyptian and American backgrounds.
Guirguis (born 1974) is interested in the way
architecture and objects parallel cultural
ideas and the extent to which both can
politicize a space. In the Islamic world, the
mashrabiyya is a lattice wooden screen
that separates private and public spheres,
and, in particular, shelters women from
public gaze, allowing them to see without
being seen. Guirguis upends the protective
function of the mashrabiyya, however, as
a specter of an atomic cloud rises from
her construction, a pointed commentary
on the destructive potential of the nuclear
arms race.
Dimensions variable
Guirguis: 92 x 94 x 77”

P O R T F O L I O
34
39 1/4 x 29 1/4”
1969
Alice Neel (1900–1984) was an astute chronicler of her time and place,
bringing a keen eye to the social landscape of New York in her expressively
rendered portraits. Her subjects ranged from family members,
lovers, and neighbors to such art-world celebrities as Andy Warhol,
the gender-fluid performer Jackie Curtis, and the painter Dorothy
Pearlstein (seen here), who sat for Neel in 1969, fashionably dressed
and returning the artist’s gaze uncompromisingly.

1977
Returning to her native New York in
1970 after an extended tenure in Spain,
Joan Semmel (born 1932) abandoned
the gestural abstraction of her early
work to focus on the nude. By 1974
her own body had become her chief
subject—often described in fragments—
as seen in the charged intimacy of Hand
Down. A champion among second-wave
feminists, Semmel commented, “One of
the reasons that I decided to use myself
was because I wanted it to be a specific
body . . . that is not idealized, so that the
culture absorbs people as they are, not
as they would like them to be.”
35
44 1/4 x 62 1/4”
40 x 50”
1995
The exploration of community is central to Catherine Opie’s practice. Interested
in the intersection of her LGBTQ identity, desire to have children, and the traditional
family structure, Opie (born 1961) set off across America in the mid-1990s to photograph
lesbian families. Flipper, Tanya, Chloe, & Harriet, San Francisco, California is
an affirmation of domesticity in all its forms. The image is carefully rendered with
soft light, open doors and windows signifying freedom and directness, matching
coffee cups signaling the close family structure, and an open chair at the foreground—
an invitation for the viewer to enter the scene.

Olga de Amaral:
To Weave a Rock
BY ANNA WALKER
ASSISTANT CURATOR, DECORATIVE ARTS, CRAFT, AND DESIGN
P R O F I L E
36
A simple weave structure is established with a warp and a weft. The
threads meet on a grid, interlocking at right angles. It is this grid that
the artist Olga de Amaral has continued to investigate, reinvent,
and expand over her prolific career. The square building blocks that
underpin her weavings are reminiscent of her training in architectural
drafting—the process of planning physical structures on a grid.
Amaral describes these squares as “the ‘words’ I use to begin creating
landscapes of surfaces, textures, emotions, memories, meanings
and connections.” After an introduction to weaving in 1954–55 at
Cranbrook Academy of Art, Amaral began exhibiting her fiber work
in the 1960s, quickly becoming one of the leaders of an international
fiber-art movement defined by its innovation in scale and use of
alternative materials. Since that period, Amaral has continued to
experiment within the medium of fiber, establishing her own visual
vocabulary using horsehair, gold leaf, gesso, brilliant colors, and
off-the-loom constructions.
47 x 75”

The works shown here are among those featured in Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock, on view July 25 through
September 19, 2021, in the Brown Foundation, Inc., Galleries of the Audrey Jones Beck Building. This exhibition is Amaral’s
first major touring retrospective in North America and includes nearly 50 works from the past six decades of her career.
37
Born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1932, Amaral closely identifies with
Antioquia, the native province of her paternal grandparents. Located
northwest of Bogotá, much of Antioquia is dominated by the Andes
Mountains, and the scenery is described by Amaral as having a “riot
of colors and countryside dotted with vividly painted houses.” The
atmosphere in Bogotá is quite the opposite. For Amaral, the city is
“cool, gray, and rainy, nestled in a landscape of deep, dark-green
vegetation.” The structure, colors, and materials of her tapestries
are inherently reflective of these dichotomous landscapes, and their
influence is seen in works ranging from the silvery grays in Riscos y
Tiempo (Ridges and Time) (1984, opposite) to the shimmering gold
in Glyph IV (2002) and Glyph IX (2002, above).
In primary school, Amaral excelled at mathematics and drawing,
prompting her to pursue a degree in architectural drafting from the
Colegio Mayor de Cundinamarca in Bogotá in 1952. After graduating,
she served as director of the Architectural Design Department for
a year before applying for entry into Cranbrook Academy of Art
in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where she was accepted as an “assistant
student” for a one-year fabric design and weaving program. At
Cranbrook Academy of Art, Amaral studied under renowned
textile designer Marianne Strengell and was taught a pedagogical
philosophy that conceived textiles as an architectural building
material. Strengell, who was born in Finland, had had a significant
textiles career in Helsinki before Eliel Saarinen, the architect of the
Cranbrook campus, invited her to teach at Cranbrook Academy
of Art. Under Strengell, the program emphasized a relationship to
industry and the design of upholsteries, draperies, and rugs—an
approach that Amaral replicated upon her return to Bogotá in
1955, where she set up an atelier employing local artisans to weave
textiles for architects, interiors, and a fashion line. Amaral’s work at
the atelier allowed a freedom and experimentation in design and
composition that later transferred to the artistic creation of her fiber
works. She explained how “the functional work allows me to get rid of
a lot of things—to release a certain energy.”
Over the next two decades in Bogotá, Amaral continued to
experiment and expand her studio practice. The 1960s, more broadly,
was a critical decade in the history of fiber arts. Major exhibitions in
both the United States and Europe featured textiles made by artists
who experimented with structure, incorporating untraditional
materials and working more intuitively with the loom. In 1962 the
Biennale Internationale de la Tapisserie Moderne (more commonly
known as the Lausanne Biennial) was initiated in Lausanne,
Switzerland, to document and promote the art of tapestry, a medium
still largely considered a mural art or directly related to architecture
and pictorial in representation. Among the 84 artists from 25 countries
showcased in the 1967 biennial, Amaral was the only representative
Glyph IV: 11 1/4 x 52”
Glyph IX: 13 x 96”

38
118 1/8 x 78 3/4”
from Latin America. She remains one of only 19 Latin
American artists to exhibit in the history of the biennials
from 1962 to 1993. The first feature on Amaral in Craft
Horizons magazine, the leading U.S. craft publication,
began with author Nell Znamierowski observing how
little is known about the craft environment in Colombia
outside of the Pre-Columbian weavings in the Andes:
“A word association game matching name of country
to a description of the type of crafts produced there
would more than likely draw a complete blank if
Colombia were mentioned.” Written in 1967, the article
speaks to the mass underrepresentation of Latin
American artists within the realm of fiber arts. Over the
next decade, Amaral would increasingly become a leader
in the movement, representing her country and exhibiting
across the world and at most of the biennials in Lausanne.
In 1970 Amaral’s solo exhibit Woven Walls, shown at
the Museum of Contemporary Crafts (now the Museum
of Arts and Design) in New York, included works from her
series of the same name. Installed to float freely in space,
Amaral’s walls are also highly textured, voluminous works.
During this decade, Amaral explored the full sculptural
potential of her media by first displaying woven textiles
as walls, then pooling them onto the floor, and finally
presenting them as freestanding columns to be viewed in
the round, as seen here in Columna en pasteles (Column
in Pastels) (1972, at right).
The 1980s then launched one of the most prolific
periods of Amaral’s career, her most prominent work of
the era being the Alquimia (Alchemy) series. First exhibited
in 1983, the series is based on the proportion of the
human figure and features heavy use of gesso and gold
leaf atop individual woven tabs. Amaral was inspired to
use gold after a visit to the studio of the British ceramist
Lucie Rie, where she saw a vase mended in the style
of kintsugi, a Japanese technique that beautifies breaks
in ceramics with lacquer and gold. Contemporaneous
to her Alquimia series was a body of work titled Lienzo
Ceremonial, which includes Lienzo Ceremonial 6
(1989, opposite). The Spanish term lienzo translates to
canvas or cloth; for Amaral, however, this translation
is not sufficient, as she considers these textiles to hold
a more sacred quality than simple canvas and cloth.
Indeed, Lienzo Ceremonial 6 is an ethereal and multilayered
surface with horizontal gold-leafed rods as the
backdrop for hundreds of individual threads converging
in an intricately netted and dense surface. Amaral’s
interest in gold, as well as its optical and sacred

eferences, persisted over the next few decades and can
still be seen in her work today. She describes how “gold
has such a wonderful way of reflecting light. It is magical,
mysterious, even though I don’t like to use those words to
describe it.”
Over time, Amaral freed herself from the traditional
rules of fiber by employing gold leaf and experimenting
with scale and structure. Reflecting on the trajectory of
her work, Amaral recalls, “During the early and middle
years of my career, color was bound to fiber. Fiber was
the medium for color and, for this reason, color was
limited by the textile processes of weaving and dyeing.”
With time, practice, and mastery, Amaral has given herself
the flexibility to play freely with the grid, embracing
and negating its structure, painting, plaiting, wrapping,
and transforming warp and weft, and building a new
language for textiles and fiber art in the process.
This text has been excerpted and adapted from the
exhibition catalogue Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock.
© 2020 The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and
arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart
P R O F I L E
39
76 1/2 x 20 3/4 x 1 3/4”

Rosana Paulino’s A permanência das estructuras will be among the works displayed in Afro-Atlantic Histories.
This exhibition, which explores the African diaspora and its legacy, will be on view in the Upper Brown Pavilion
of the Caroline Wiess Law Building from October 24, 2021, through January 23, 2022.
A Patchwork History
Based in São Paulo, Rosana Paulino (born 1967) focuses on issues of
race, gender, memory, and the oppression and violence experienced
by Afro-Brazilians. “As a Black woman myself,” she has stated,
“I question my role within a society that has suffered through slavery.
. . . My intention is to investigate the marks that slavery planted on the
Black female body and soul, and on Brazilian society.”
Paulino works in a variety of media, often combining sewing and
quilting techniques—artistic and utilitarian practices historically
carried out by women—with printmaking and other forms of digital
reproduction. In A permanência das estruturas (The Permanence of
Structures) (2017), the artist stitches together found images to create
a deliberately informal montage that includes diagrams of the ships
that carried enslaved people to the New World. Parsing what she has
termed “scientific racism,” Paulino juxtaposes these diagrams with
photographs of a naked Black man who has been systematically and
dispassionately examined from various angles. The artist conducts
her own examination of the figure, cutting out the frontal view and
segmenting one of the side views to create both a void and a ghostly,
ever-present reminder of the abuse of Black people and the erasure
of Black histories.
Partially framing the piece are two “pages,” bringing to mind a title
page or a historic broadside, with the words “A permanência
das estruturas” repeated in different type sizes. At first glance, the
typographical variations suggest that the page conveys more than a
single phrase, however the viewer ultimately recognizes the rhetorical
device that reminds us that “permanent structures”—like racism—are
deeply imbedded and ever-present.
The idea of inescapability is further reiterated by the work’s allusions
to death. The precisely rendered skulls, like the photographically
catalogued body, are both markers of the “scientific” as well as
memento mori, underscoring death’s inevitability. The final element
that Paulino stitches or, as she says, “sutures,” to the piece also alludes
to death: when juxtaposed with images related to slavery and exploitation,
the printed blue-and-white panel that focuses on ferociously
hunted prey is yet another reminder of politically sanctioned brutality
and the colonial culture that condoned it.
As Paulino explains, “Most of my sewn work uses the stitching
technique used in surgery known as suture. . . . A suture implies a
certain amount of force putting the parts together, which indicates
violence. . . . [and] the main issue I want to tackle . . . [is] the silencing
of and violence against our Black population.” However, Paulino also
acknowledges that sutures are used to heal, pointing to the strategies
of survival needed to overcome this toxic legacy.
U P C L O S E
41
36 5/8 x 43 1/4”
Paulino uses negative space to emphasize
themes of violence and erasure.
Brazil, the last country in the Western
Hemisphere to end slavery (1888), is
known to have transported—on ships
like those pictured in the diagram—more
enslaved people from Africa than any
other nation.
Paulino references Brazil’s history
with this image of a Portuguese blueand-white
tile that would have been
found decorating colonial homes and
public spaces.

Q&A
The Gorilla Girls
F I V E M I N U T E S W I T H
42
On May 28, 1987, a group of masked figures
appeared at the opening of Houston Hispanic
Artists: New Views at the Museum’s Glassell
School of Art. This was the first “hit” (or
protest) of Gorilla Girls Houston, an anonymous
association of women artists. Like
their New York counterparts, the Guerilla
Girls, they sought to challenge the male
dominance of art historical narratives and
practices, demanding equal representation
and compensation. The following year, the
Gorilla Girls created Liberty Leading the
People, a sophisticated reworking of Eugène
Delacroix’s heroic depiction of the 1830 July
revolution (see opposite page). Now that this
painting has recently entered the collection
of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the
artists have revisited this project with Alison
de Lima Greene, the Isabel Brown Wilson
Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art
at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Liberty Leading the People was featured in the Gorilla Girls’
Another Dead Horse, your first group exhibition, which was
held at Houston’s DiverseWorks. What led you to choose
Eugène Delacroix’s 19th-century history painting to address
present-day needs?
We didn’t choose Delacroix, we chose Liberty, a strong female leading
a charge. The main character, Liberty, is traditionally depicted as a
woman. Go figure, given the number of liberties women have historically
been deprived of.
Appropriation was a strategy shared by many artists in the
1980s. Did the Gorilla Girls view this as another form of masking?
We prefer to use the word theft, not appropriation. The work we
chose was all male, stolen directly from the “hallowed” textbook
H. W. Janson’s History of Art, which was notoriously devoid of
women artists. Of course it was masking.
What roles do gender-reversal and satire play in this work?
Gender-reversal was used to challenge conventional representations
of women in the history of art, usually depicted as passive objects,
ornaments to be gazed upon. We made them women of action.
We used satire as a hook to draw viewers in and then a hammer
to get the point across. Humor was the thread that connected us to
one another and to the work. Everything we did was fun. Have you
ever tried to laugh in a rubber mask?
The New York Guerilla Girls made their first appearance in 1985.
Did you have direct contact with them? In what ways did your
change in name (from Guerilla to Gorilla) express your independence
from the New York group and other manifestations of the
Guerilla Girls?
We had no contact with the New York Guerrillas, however, we
encountered a newspaper clipping about them that was fuel for
an already smoldering fire. Within a day, we bought masks, made
our suits, and prepared for the first Houston Gorilla Girl “hit.”
We liked “Gorilla.” It referred to our long plight, continuing back
to our ancestors.
Our common goal was protesting unequal representation of
women in the arts, but each group had its own style and generated
its own ideas and activities. Our focus was almost immediately the
challenges women face with home, workplace, pay, health care,
religion, and family, to mention a few.
The Gorilla Girls disbanded after a decade. Looking back, did
the association fulfill your goals? Is there still work to be done?
Is there still work to be done? For starters, you might want to check
the Museum’s collection database for that answer. In 1988, we
donned our masks and “hit” the MFAH. A guard shouted “CEASE
and DESIST!” and escorted us away from the entrance. We find it
amusing that today we have a painting in the MFAH and you have
another Delacroix.
We fulfilled personal goals we didn’t even know we had, drawing
from the strength of a group of women, but in the larger context,
there is still an enormous amount of work to be done to ensure
equality in every aspect of women’s lives.
To even glimpse what we might have been
If we had not had to spend our whole lives
fighting to even glimpse.
—Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759, mother of the women’s movement
For more information, all of our materials have been archived
in the University of Houston’s Women’s Studies Department.
43
72 x 84”

Dynamic Duo
44
53 1/8 x 9 7/8 x 9 1/8”
Both Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) and Alexander Calder (1898–1976)
explored different stylistic and technical approaches to their
artistic subjects over the years, innovating entirely new ways to
perceive grand themes. They shared other commonalities as well,
as detailed in the exhibition and publication Calder-Picasso (2019),
a project initiated by their grandsons Alexander S. C. Rower and
Bernard Ruiz-Picasso. A key connection can be found specifically
in their exploration of the void, or the absence of space, which
both artists defined from the figure through to abstraction. Notably,
although they were not friends, they encountered one another on
a few occasions and were certainly aware of each other’s work.
The two artists exhibited works in the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937
Exposition Internationale des arts et techniques dans la vie moderne
(International Exposition) in Paris. There, Picasso unveiled his
large-scale painting Guernica as a response to the horrors of the
Spanish Civil War. Installed nearby was Calder’s Mercury Fountain,
commemorating the siege of the Spanish mercury-mining town of
Almadén by the Fascist troops led by General Francisco Franco.
(Instead of water, the sculptural fountain pumps mercury, a toxic metal
that is liquid at room temperature.)
Calder, an artist since childhood, had moved to Paris in 1926. There,
he began to “sketch” in his favorite medium of wire, creating “threedimensional
line drawing,” as he once called these massless
objects. That same year, he began producing sculptures made
of wire, string, fabric, wood, and a spectrum of found materials. With
these, the artist formed the Cirque Calder (1926–31), a collection of
wire figures—complete with a ringmaster, animal acts, trapeze artists,
and more—animated by complex mechanisms of Calder’s design.
The artist toured with his miniature circus, often giving two-hour
shows for audiences in New York and Paris, combining sculpture
and theater in a way that predated modern performance art by
three decades.
During the same period, Calder developed a series of wire
“drawings in space” depicting the celebrated American performer
Josephine Baker, known for her wild and titillating dances on the stage
of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. (Picasso is said to have

Calder-Picasso will be on view from October 31, 2021, to January 30, 2022, in the
Brown Foundation, Inc., Galleries of the Audrey Jones Beck Building.
called her “the Nefertiti of now.”) By articulating her body in ways that
made her sway with currents of air, Calder seized her kinetic persona
instead of recording a mere physical likeness (see opposite page).
In seeking to further animate his work, Calder pioneered a new
approach to sculpture, which he described as “abstractions that
are like nothing in life except in their manner of reacting.” He
brought movement to his works by hanging them from the ceiling,
allowing for freedom of motion, or by animating them with small
motors. Upon seeing one such work in Calder’s studio in 1931, the
artist Marcel Duchamp coined the term mobile. Aside from producing
mobiles, Calder also produced stabiles, metal works not designed to
move but made dynamic by their visual balance of abstracted forms
and negative spaces.
Like Calder, Picasso also produced sculptures out of wire and sheet
metal at different points in his career, yet he retained specific figurative
references in many of his works. One of his favorite subjects was
the women in his life, with whom he often had fraught relationships.
Among his models were his wives and lovers, including Olga Khoklova
Marie-Thérèse Walter, Dora Maar (see page 26), Françoise Gilot, and
Jacqueline Roque.
In 1947, inspired by Françoise Gilot, his lover at that time, he painted
a woman in an armchair—a recurring theme in his oeuvre. The work,
seen here, teeters on the edge of utter abstraction. Picasso uses
loose, simple shapes to form the curves of the model, which contrast
with the sharp, straight lines of the chair. The painting reinforces the
artist’s fascination with the void—the woman’s figure is stripped of
excess to reveal her essential structure and truth. Both Calder and
Picasso used line not only to delineate forms but also their absence,
thereby giving shape to the void.
As Rower and Ruiz-Picasso wrote in the exhibition catalogue
Calder-Picasso, “Calder externalized the void through curiosity and
intellectual expansion, engaging unseen forces in ways that challenge
dimensional limitations, or what he called ‘grandeur immense.’ Picasso
personalized the exploration, focusing on the emotional inner self. He
brought himself inside each character and collapsed the interpersonal
space between author and subject.”
I N T H E M I X
45
36 1/4 x 28 1/2”

E X H I B I T I O N F U N D E R S
Afro-Atlantic Histories
This exhibition is co-organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
and the Museu de Arte de Sāo Paulo in collaboration with the
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Major support is provided by:
Calder-Picasso
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
in partnership with the Calder Foundation, New York; Musée
National Picasso-Paris (MNPP); and the Fundación Almine y
Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte (FABA).
The Obama Portraits Tour
This tour has been organized by the Smithsonian’s National
Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Support for the national tour has been generously provided by
Bank of America.
Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
and the Cranbrook Art Museum.
46
This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from
the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Major support is provided by:
Bobbie Nau
Major support is provided by:
Sara and Bill Morgan, in honor of Anna Walker
Additional generous funding is provided by:
Anne Lamkin Kinder
Leatrice and Melvin Eagle
Lenore G. Tawney Foundation Joan Morgenstern
Michael W. Dale
Impressionism to Modernism:
Monet to Matisse from the
Bemberg Foundation
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
and the Bemberg Foundation in collaboration with Manifesto Expo.
Three Centuries of American Art
Antiquities, European and
American Masterpieces from
The Fayez S. Sarofim Collection
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
FO N DATION B EMBERG
This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the
Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Generous funding provided by:
The Favrot Fund
Sidley Austin LLP
Samuel F. Gorman
Ann G. Trammell
Carol and Mike Linn
Additional Museum support provided by a
Cultural District grant from
Lead Corporate Sponsor:
Generous funding provided by:
Gail and Louis Adler
Ellen and Charles Sheedy
Nancy and Rich Kinder Vivian L. Smith Foundation
Georgia O’Keef fe, Photographer
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
with the collaboration of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe.
Generous support provided by:
Rand Group
All exhibition funders listed are as of printing deadline.

C R E D I T S
Women’s Work
PAGE 1
Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled (Woman standing alone),
1990, printed 2003, platinum print, the Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by the
Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund,
2019.481.28. © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the
artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
A Modern Woman
PAGE 3
Georgia O’Keeffe, Grey Lines with Black, Blue and Yellow,
c. 1923, oil on canvas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
museum purchase funded by the Agnes Cullen Arnold
Endowment Fund, 77.331. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum /
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer
PAGE 4
Todd Webb, Georgia O’Keeffe with Camera, 1958, printed
later, inkjet print, Todd Webb Archive. © Todd Webb
Archive, Portland, Maine, USA. Photograph © Todd
Webb Archive, Portland, Maine, USA.
PAGE 6
Georgia O’Keeffe, Jimsonweed (Datura stramonium),
1964–68, black-and-white Polaroid, Georgia O’Keeffe
Museum, 2006.6.1072. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
Photograph © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
PAGE 7
Georgia O’Keeffe, Salita Door, 1956–57, gelatin
silver print, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, 2006.6.1407.
© Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Photograph
© Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
PAGES 8–9
Georgia O’Keefe, Forbidding Canyon, Glen Canyon,
September 1964, 5 black-and-white Polaroids, Georgia
O’Keeffe Museum, 2006.6.1084, 2006.6.1986–.1088,
2006.6.1092. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Photograph
© Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
PAGE 9
Georgia O’Keeffe, Road from Abiquiú, 1964–68,
black-and-white Polaroid, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum,
2006.6.1082. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Photograph
© Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
Impressionist Women
PAGE 11
Berthe Morisot, Young Woman Reading (Portrait of
Julie Manet in Grey), 1886, pastel, Fondation Bemberg.
PAGE 12
Berthe Morisot, Women in the Garden (Villa Arnulphi
in Nice), 1882, oil on canvas, Fondation Bemberg.
PAGE 13
Mary Cassatt, Woman and Child Seated in a Garden,
c. 1894, oil on canvas, the Fayez S. Sarofim Collection.
PAGE 14
Mary Cassatt, In the Park, c. 1894, oil on canvas,
the Fayez S. Sarofim Collection.
PAGE 15
Mary Cassatt, Antoinette at Her Dressing Table
(also called Femme à sa toilette), 1909, oil on canvas,
the Fayez S. Sarofim Collection.
A Seat at the Table
PAGE 16
Clockwise from top left: Carrie Mae Weems,
Untitled (Man and mirror), Untitled (Woman with
friends), Untitled (Woman playing solitaire), Untitled
(Woman and daughter with makeup), 1990, printed
2003, platinum prints, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, museum purchase funded by the Caroline
Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund, 2019.481.1,
2019.481.13, 2019.481.34, 2019.481.20. © Carrie Mae
Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman
Gallery, New York.
PAGES 18–19
Carrie Mae Weems, Kitchen Table Series, 1990, printed
2003, platinum prints and text sheets, the Museum
of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by
the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund,
2019.481.1-.34. © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the
artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Making History
PAGES 20–21
Angelica Kauffmann, Ariadne Abandoned by Theseus,
1774, oil on canvas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harris Masterson III in memory of
Neill Turner Masterson, Jr., 69.23.
Great Women Artists
PAGE 22
Julia Margaret Cameron, Rosalba (Cyllena Wilson),
1867, albumen silver print from glass negative, the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase
funded by the Brown Foundation Accessions
Endowment Fund, The Manfred Heiting Collection,
2004.335.
PAGE 23
Suzanne Valadon, Self-Portrait, 1898, oil on canvas,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, John A. and Audrey
Jones Beck Collection, gift of Audrey Jones Beck,
98.306.
PAGE 24
Top: Anna Claypoole Peale, Portrait of Susa Orcutt
Bates (1760–1826), 1821, watercolor on ivory, the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Bayou Bend
Collection, museum purchase funded by Nina and
Michael Zilkha, B.99.6; bottom: Newcomb College
Pottery, decorated by Harriet Coulter Joor, made by
Joseph Meyer, Vase, 1900, earthenware, the Museum
of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of William J. Hill, 2016.198.
© Estate of Harriet Coulter Joor
PAGE 25
S. R. Carroll, Ellen Ehlies, M. A. Humphreys, Sophia
Osborne, T. S. (initials), and M. D. (initials), Baltimore
Album Quilt, 1846–50, cotton and cotton appliqué,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Mrs. John D.
Rockefeller, Jr., 45.4.
PAGE 26
Dora Maar, Untitled, 1935–36, gelatin silver print collage
with applied color, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law
Accessions Endowment Fund, 97.83. © Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
PAGE 27
Betye Saar, Weight of Persistent Racism
(Manufactured in the U.S.A.), 2014, mixed-media
assemblage, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
museum purchase funded by contemporary@mfah
and the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment
Fund, 2019.187. © 2014 Betye Saar, courtesy of the
Artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles
PAGE 28
Photograph of the Louise Nevelson retrospective
exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
in 1969. Courtesy the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston Archives
PAGES 28–29
Louise Nevelson, Mirror Image I, 1969, painted wood,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase
funded by The Brown Foundation, Inc., 69.10. © Estate
of Louise Nevelson/Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York
PAGE 30
Eva Hesse, No Title, 1964, gouache, ink, watercolor,
and graphite on wove paper, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, museum purchase funded by the Caroline
Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund, 98.529.
© The Estate of Eva Hesse. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth
PAGE 31
Left: Louise Bourgeois, printed by Felix Harlan and
Carol Weaver at Harlan & Weaver, New York, published
by Peter Blum Edition/Blumarts, Inc., New York, Ste
Sébastienne, 1992, drypoint on wove paper, edition
III/X, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Peter
Blum Edition Archive, 1980–1994, museum purchase
funded by the Alice Pratt Brown Museum Fund, 96.7.
© The Easton Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at
Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY; right: Joyce J. Scott,
“The Sneak” Necklace, 1989, beads and thread, the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Helen Williams Drutt
Collection, museum purchase funded by the Caroline
Wiess Law Foundation, 2002.4077. © Joyce J. Scott
PAGE 32
Left: Ruth Asawa, Untitled (S. 562, Hanging Sphere
with Two Cones that Penetrate the Sphere from Top
and Bottom), c. 1954, galvanized steel wire and brass
wire, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum
purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions
Endowment Fund, 2014.194. © Ruth Asawa; right:
Doris Salcedo, Disremembered IV, 2015, silk thread
and nickel-plated steel, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, museum purchase funded by the Caroline
Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund and the Latin
American Experience Gala and Auction, 2015.664.
© Doris Salcedo
PAGE 33
Top: Tone Vigeland, Wall Piece I, 2002, lead and steel,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Helen Williams
Drutt Collection, museum purchase funded by the
Director’s Accessions Endowment, and gift of Helen
Williams Drutt English, 2004.2017. © Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York / BONO, Oslo; bottom: Sherin
Guirguis, Mashrabeya, 2009, plywood, the Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by Nijad
and Zeina Fares at “One Great Night in November, 2011,”
2011.1004.A-.C. © Sherin Guirguis Studio
PAGE 34
Alice Neel, Dorothy Pearlstein, 1969, oil on canvas,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of
Hartley S. Neel and Richard Neel, 2011.225.
© Estate of Alice Neel
PAGE 35
Top: Joan Semmel, Hand Down, 1977, oil on canvas,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Christine
Connal, 78.151. © Joan Semmel / Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York; bottom: Catherine Opie, Flipper,
Tanya, Chloe, & Harriet, San Francisco, California,
1995, inkjet print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
museum purchase funded by Michael Zilkha,
2019.1. © Catherine Opie, Courtesy Regen Projects,
Los Angeles
Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock
PAGE 36
Olga de Amaral, Riscos y Tiempos (Ridges and Time),
1984, wool and horsehair, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, the Leatrice S. and Melvin B. Eagle Collection,
gift of Leatrice and Melvin Eagle, 2010.2262.
© Olga de Amaral
PAGE 37
Olga de Amaral, Glyph IV and Glyph IX, 2002, linen,
gold leaf, clay, and paint, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, the Leatrice S. and Melvin B. Eagle Collection,
gift of Leatrice and Melvin Eagle, 2008.901, 2008.902.
© Olga de Amaral
PAGE 38
Olga de Amaral, Columna en pasteles (Column in
Pastels), 1972, wool and horsehair, the Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by the
Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund,
2019.162. © Olga de Amaral
PAGE 39
Olga de Amaral, Lienzo Ceremonial 6, 1989,
linen, acrylic, and gold leaf, the Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston, gift of Carol Straus, 2006.5.
© Olga de Amaral
A Patchwork History
PAGE 40
Rosana Paulino, A permanência das estructuras
(The Permanence of Structures), 2017, digital print
on textile, cutout, and sewing. Courtesy the artist
and MASP São Paulo.
Q&A with the Gorilla Girls Houston
PAGE 42
Courtesy Gorilla Girls Houston.
PAGE 43
Gorilla Girls Houston, Liberty Leading the People,
1988, oil on canvas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
museum purchase funded by the Director’s Accessions
Endowment, 2020.155. © Gorilla Girls Houston
Dynamic Duo
PAGE 44
Alexander Calder, Aztec Josephine Baker, 1930, wire,
Calder Foundation, New York, promised gift of Holton
Rower. © 2021 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York
PAGE 45
Pablo Picasso, Femme dans un fauteuil (Woman in an
Armchair), April 2, 1947, oil on canvas, Musée national
Picasso-Paris, MP1990-23, on loan to Musée Picasso,
Antibes, Jacqueline Picasso acceptance in lieu, 1990.
© 2021 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York
Portraits
PAGE 48
Left: Kehinde Wiley, President Barack Obama, 2018,
oil on canvas, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian
Institution; gift of Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg;
Judith Kern and Kent Whealy; Tommie L. Pegues and
Donald A. Capoccia; Clarence, DeLoise, and Brenda
Gaines; The Stoneridge Fund of Amy and Marc Meadows;
Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker; Catherine and
Michael Podell; Mark and Cindy Aron; Lyndon J. Barrois
and Janine Sherman Barrois; The Honorable John and
Louise Bryson; Paul and Rose Carter; Bob and Jane Clark;
Lisa R. Davis; Shirley Ross Davis and Family; Alan and Lois
Fern; Conrad and Constance Hipkins; Sharon and John
Hoffman; Daniel and Kimberly Johnson; John Legend and
Chrissy Teigen; Eileen Harris Norton; Helen Hilton Raiser;
Philip and Elizabeth Ryan; Roselyne Chroman Swig; Josef
Vascovitz and Lisa Goodman; Michele J. Hooper and
Lemuel Seabrook III; The Skylark Foundation; Cleveland
and Harriette Chambliss; Anna Chavez and Eugene
Eidenberg; Carla Diggs & Stephen M. Smith; Danny First;
Peggy Woodford Forbes and Harry, NPG.2018.16. © 2018
Kehinde Wiley; right: Amy Sherald, Michelle Obama,
born 17 Jan 1964, 2018, oil on linen, National Portrait
Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Kate Capshaw and
Steven Spielberg; Judith Kern and Kent Whealy; Tommie
L. Pegues and Donald A. Capoccia; Clarence, DeLoise,
and Brenda Gaines; Jonathan and Nancy Lee Kemper;
The Stoneridge Fund of Amy and Marc Meadows; Robert
E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker; Catherine and Michael
Podell; Mark and Cindy Aron; Lyndon J. Barrois and
Janine Sherman Barrois; The Honorable John and Louise
Bryson; Paul and Rose Carter; Bob and Jane Clark; Lisa
R. Davis; Shirley Ross Davis and Family; Alan and Lois
Fern; Conrad and Constance Hipkins; Sharon and John
Hoffman; Audrey M. Irmas; John Legend and Chrissy
Teigen; Eileen Harris Norton; Helen Hilton Raiser; Philip
and Elizabeth Ryan; Roselyne Chroman Swig; Josef
Vascovitz and Lisa Goodman; Eileen Baird; Dennis and
Joyce Black Family Charitable Foundation; Shelley
Brazier; Aryn Drake-Lee; Andy and Teri Goodman; Randi
Charno Levine and Jeffrey E. Levine; Fred M. Levin and
Nancy Livingston, The Shenson Foundation; Monique
Meloche Gallery, Chicago; Arthur Lewis and Hau Nguyen;
Sara and John Schram; Alyssa Taubman and Robert
Rothman, NPG.2018.15. © National Portrait Gallery
47

S P R I N G 2 0 2 2
C O M I N G S O O N
48
72 1/8 x 60 1/8 x 2 3/4”
84 1/8 x 57 7/8 x 1 1/4”
Portraits
In 2017 former President Barack Obama selected Kehinde Wiley
(born 1977) to paint his portrait for the National Portrait Gallery’s
permanent collection and America’s Presidents gallery. Wiley said of
his famous sitter, “He, from the very beginning, wanted to have a very
relaxed, man-of-the-people representation. Even the smallest details,
things such as the open collar, the absence of the tie, the sense
that his body is actually moving toward you, physically, in space, as
opposed to feeling aloof. All of those subtle things go into what a
portrait means.”
At the same time, Amy Sherald (born 1973) undertook a complementary
portrait of Michelle Obama, also commissioned by the
National Portrait Gallery, with the approval of Mrs. Obama. Sherald’s
signature grayscale treatment of her subject references photographic
traditions and asks viewers to consider both the former First
Lady’s race and her humanity. Sherald commented, “I wanted to
produce something that was really about the interior versus the
exterior . . . something that alluded to the nuances of who she really
is versus who she has to be.” These magnificent portraits will be
coming to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on the final stop of
The Obama Portraits Tour, March 27 through May 30, 2022.

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