To Future Women and Beyond

Visitors write letters for the To Future Women project at The Phillips Collection. Photo: Rhiannon Newman

To Future Women, Georgia Saxelby’s interactive piece honoring the one-year anniversary of the 2017 Women’s March, debuted at The Phillips Collection in February. The warm pink alcove papered with red and gray visitor responses and the circle of matching pink, high-backed writing desks presented a stark contrast to the earth-toned, heavy-framed Cubist works from the last century that lined the walls around it. Though the Valentine-heart color scheme evokes almost stereotypical notions of a “feminine” aesthetic, the presentation is anything but passive and soft. The conceptual prompt asked participants to consider what they would like to say to future women in the context of the recent and current socio-political environment that birthed the Women’s March and corresponding activist movements. Artistically, the installation speaks to the iconoclastic role of women in the modern and contemporary art world as well—a trend evidenced by recent Phillips acquisitions, several of which are currently on view.

Just outside the gallery where To Future Women was exhibited, visitors can currently see two works by feminist icon Georgia O’Keeffe. Different from her usual flowers and natural forms, both paintings feature architectural elements—an adobe chapel in New Mexico, and the painter’s own “shanty” at Lake George. About the latter, O’Keeffe was known to have joked that she painted it to prove that she could work in conventional, “dreary” colors as well as the men in her artistic circle. It is not hard to imagine her wry amusement at the fact that this uncharacteristically traditional composition in browns and greens earned the praise of her male critics who had been less than comfortable with the bold, vivid flowers that ultimately earned her a prominent place in the art world, not to mention at Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party.

Kara Walker, Crest of Pine Mountain, where General Polk Fell, 2005. Offset lithograph with silkscreening Sheet: 39 x 59 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Gift of Julia J. Norrell, 2015

Of course, it goes without saying that women, like people of color and other minorities, have not received adequate recognition or representation in the art world. Apart from O’Keeffe, it can be difficult to find evidence of women artists among the 19th-and 20th-century impressionists, expressionists, and cubists. In one gallery, a single painting by Berthe Morisot hangs alone among works by Van Gogh, Gaugin, Monet, Bonnard, and Vuillard. However, among more recent acquisitions by the museum, art by women stands out and speaks loudly. Crest of Pine Mountain, Where General Polk Fell, a powerful work from Kara Walker’s Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War series, hangs in the same gallery as several panels from Jacob Lawrence’s iconic Migration Series. The faceless figures silhouetted in black against a background from a 19th-century issue of Harper’s Magazine about the Civil War speak volumes about both insidious stereotypes and the reality of African American experiences that still go unseen and unacknowledged to the detriment of American socio-political discourse. This is not just art by someone who happens to be a woman or a person of color—this is art that says something about the history and the experience of that identity.

Women are also well-represented in the collection of sculptural works on display at the Phillips right now. British artist Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture Dual Form provides a powerful focal point in the courtyard outside the museum café, and it is especially worth strolling up the central staircase to admire works by a number of contemporary sculptors—all women. Cuban-born artist Zilia Sánchez’s work Maquinista, Diptico, with its minimalist, mostly-white palette and subtle forms appears deceptively simple. At first, the play of shadows cast by the softly rounded shapes that rise to peaks like waves in a lake seems compelling, but non-representational. However, the pinkish-tan color suggests something more symbolic of the female body in a way that is conscious of itself and its natural shapes without being subject to external objectification. This impression is bolstered by considering the sculpture both in the context of the other works in the stairwell and in the context of Sánchez’s larger body of work. The Phillips will feature a solo exhibition of her work in 2019, and hopefully before the time capsule of Saxelby’s To Future Women letters are revisited in 20 years, many more groundbreaking women will find their art and their experiences represented in museums everywhere.

Rebekah Planto, Museum Assistant

 

Creating an Artistic Language

Adolph Gottlieb, The Seer, 1950. Oil on canvas, 59 3/4 x 71 5/8 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1952. © Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

In 1941, in the aftermath of Paul Klee’s death and memorial retrospective organized by the Museum of Modern Art, Adolph Gottlieb produced a new, daring series, which eventually included over 500 works. He called these abstract inventions pictographs, or paintings filled with hieroglyphic-like forms. The Seer is one of the largest and last in the series. In a flat grid, Gottlieb juxtaposed abstract symbols conjured through free association with universal archetypes such as the arrow, circle, triangle, and ellipse in a manner reminiscent of Klee’s mature compositions.

During the 1940s, Gottlieb drew on Klee’s example in creating a unique artistic language that reconciled several opposing elements: line versus color, structure versus spontaneity, thought versus feeling, and stasis versus dynamism. According to Klee, these dualities mirror the primal conflict that has existed since the beginning of human existence. Gottlieb echoed the view, noting, “These opposites parallel our inner conflicts which are usually unresolved.”

This work is on view in Ten Americans: After Paul Klee through May 6, 2018.

Tuesday Tunes: A Playlist for Bradley Walker Tomlin

Taking inspiration from the major theme of music in Ten Americans: After Paul Klee, we paired 11 staff members with 11 works from the exhibition and asked them to respond to create a playlist in response to their individual artwork. Kelley Daley, Head of Public Programming, created her playlist in response to Bradley Walker Tomlin’s “Number 12–1949.”

Bradley Walker Tomlin, Number 12–1949, 1949, Oil on canvas, 32 1/4 x 31 1/4 in., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Gift of Abby and B. H. Friedman in honor of John I. H. Baur

When I first looked at Bradley Walker Tomlin’s Number 12, I was struck by the cheerful, spring-like, Nickelodeon-esque slime green in the background. It made me nostalgic, warm, and happy; however, after spending time with the painting, the dark shapes became more prominent and I felt sentimental and introspective. I noticed the drips on some of the shapes; the almost non-existent, left behind shapes and lines in the background; or the bright pop of color mixed in with the dark, bold shapes that didn’t make the painting seem so overwhelmingly sad. I was most inspired by the contradiction of bold black lines with the bright, hidden shapes in the background that created an oscillation between happiness, nostalgia, and sentimentality. From David Bowie to Childish Gambino, this playlist features tracks that have a pronounced, toe-tapping beat (inspired by the bold black shapes), that sometimes overshadows the sentimental tenderness in the lyrics or other instruments.

Kelley Daley, Head of Public Programming

Feeling inspired? Create your own playlist based around works in the exhibition and send it to us at communications@phillipscollection.org and we may feature it on our blog and social media.