Washington, D.C. – New York artist Kathleen Gilje has created a two-part installation entitled Susanna and The Elders, Restored, based on the life and work of 17th-century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi. It will be on view at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NWMA) from October 18, 2001 to January 21, 2002.

Gentileschi is considered an icon of feminist art, both because of her personal travails and the themes of her artwork. Gilje’s installation comprises a meticulous copy of Gentileschi’s 1610 painting Susanna and The Elders alongside an x-ray of the underpainting, a common practice in Gentileschi’s time of painting over sections of the canvas to make changes. Gilje created her underpainting to highlight how closely Gentileschi’s own story mirrors that of her chosen subject. Both the biblical character and the artist were subjected to unwanted attention from older men.

Susanna and The Elders was painted near the time that a charge of rape was brought to court by Gentileschi’s father, also a painter, on her behalf. The seven-month trial produced evidence of sexual harassment and rape of the 19-year-old artist by her teacher, Agostino Tassi, a member of her father’s artistic circle. Similarly, in the bible story, Susanna declines the sexual advances of two elder men in her community. Shamed by her refusal, they determine to ruin her reputation rather than their own. In the end, conflicting court testimony by the men proves her innocence.

Gentileschi’s Susanna and the Elders is an unusually sympathetic portrayal of a young woman defensive before her aggressors. It contrasts with treatments of the subject by male artists of the time, who most often portrayed Susanna as voluptuous and participating in the elders’ desire. What the x-ray reveals in Gilje’s Susanna and The Elders, Restored is an anguished but defiant Susanna, wielding a knife against her assailants. The knife, Gentileschi’s court-reported weapon of self-defense, transforms Susanna from victim to avenger. Gilje’s additions to the underpainting, motivated by biographical and historical information, seek the psychological reality behind the work.

Susanna and the Elders, Restored is part of a series of works in which Gilje explores how an artist’s life and times may have influenced their interpretation. She pays homage and sometimes wreaks well-informed havoc on iconic images from the grand tradition of European painting. In altering the face of an Ingres portrait or substituting a needle and syringe for a lizard in a Caravaggio, she investigates the psychological reality that contributed to the work. "I want to bring something else to the old, original paintings, which I love, to increase our understanding of the original artwork, the audience, and the artist," she comments.

Susanna and the Elders, Restored is organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Curator for the installation is Susan Fisher Sterling, NMWA deputy director for art and programs.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts, founded in 1981 and opened in 1987, is the only museum dedicated solely to celebrating the achievements of women in the visual, performing, and literary arts. Its permanent collection contains works by more than 800 artists, including Judith Leyster, Maria Sibylla Merian, Mary Cassatt, Camille Claudel, Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, Elizabeth Catlett, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, and Louise Bourgeois. The museum also conducts multidisciplinary programs for diverse audiences, maintains a Library and Research Center, publishes a quarterly magazine, and has organized 24 state committees. More than 100,000 people visit the museum each year, including thousands of young people who come with schools and scouting groups. NMWA’s national membership of 35,000 is among the top ten percent of museum memberships nationwide. The museum is located at 1250 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, in a landmark building near the White House. It is open Monday-Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Sunday noon – 5 p.m. General admission is $5 for adults, $3 for students and seniors (60 and over), and free for NMWA members and youth (18 and under). Free Community Days are offered the first Sunday and Wednesday of each month. For information call 202.783.5000 or visit the museum’s website, www.nmwa.org.

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