Lasting Impressions: Women Printmakers in Early Modern Italy

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Emily Haight

With household names such as Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and Tiepolo dominating museums, it would be easy to believe there were no women artists working in Italy during similar time periods. Though they faced more challenges than their male counterparts, women artists held a strong presence in early Italian art.

Elisabetta Sirani, Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist, 1655–1665; Etching on paper, 10 5/8 x 8 3/4 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

Elisabetta Sirani and Diana Mantuana (also known as Diana Ghisi, Diana Mantovana, or Diana Scultori) are two women who had successful careers as artists. Sirani (1638–1665) was a Baroque painter and engraver from Bologna. Considered a prodigy, she created more than 200 works of her art during her short life. Mantuana (c. 1535–c. 1590), born in Mantua, Italy, was a Mannerist engraver who also had a very productive career.

These two women, born nearly 100 years apart, share striking similarities. Both were trained by their fathers—a typical entry point into the arts for women. By the age of 19 Sirani was the breadwinner of her family, supporting her parents and three siblings when her father became too ill to work. Mantuana also proved her business savvy, using her engravings to advertise the architectural work of her husband, thus securing him commissions.

Both Sirani and Mantuana made strong statements by signing their works—a rare practice for a woman artist. Because Sirani painted quickly, critics made accusations that her father was lending a hand. In response, Sirani opened her studio to the public to observe her at work. Even Grand Duke Cosimo III de’ Medici came to watch her paint. Mantuana also placed an emphasis on her signature, becoming one of the first women to receive papal privilege. Essentially a copyright granted by the pope, this protected her work from being copied and secured her name to every work that she printed.

Diana Ghisi, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (after Giulio Romano), 1575; Copperplate engraving on paper, 16 1/2 x 23 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

Diana Mantuana, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (after Giulio Romano), 1575; Copperplate engraving on paper, 16 1/2 x 23 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

NMWA’s collection contains engravings by both Sirani and Mantuana. Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (1575), based on a Raphael tapestry designed for the Sistine Chapel, is one of Mantuana’s most famous prints. In the corner, she dedicated the engraving to Eleonora of Austria and stated her dual allegiance to Rome and Mantua. Two engravings by Sirani, The Holy Family with St. Elizabeth and St. John the Baptist and Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist, are in NMWA’s collection. In the latter engraving, Sirani stated that it was inspired by Raphael, much like Mantuana’s work.

These pioneering women also received recognition from their male peers. Mantuana is one of the few women mentioned in Vasari’s 1568 version of Lives, in which he says he “was astounded” by her work. Sirani won the favor of biographer Malvasia, who referred to Sirani as “the glory of the female sex, the gem of Italy, the sun of Europe.”

Sirani continued to help elevate other women artists, opening what is considered to be the first art school in Europe for women. There she trained her two younger sisters and at least 12 other aspiring women artists.

—Chloe Bazlen is the summer 2017 education intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Returning the Gaze: Lalla Essaydi

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Emily Haight

In celebration of NMWA’s 30th anniversary, and inspired by the museum’s focus on contemporary women artists as catalysts for change, Revival illuminates how women working in sculpture, photography, and video use spectacle and scale for expressive effect.

Lalla Essaydi, Bullets Revisited #20, 2014; Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum, 30 x 40 in.; Courtesy Miller Yezerski Gallery © Lalla Essaydi

Lalla Essaydi (b. 1956, Marrakesh, Morocco)

Born and raised in Morocco, Lalla Essaydi now lives and works in New York. She received her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in 2003 and has since participated in several major exhibitions around the world.

Essaydi’s intricately staged photographs not only draw the viewer in with their scale and beauty, but go further to challenge 19th century Orientalist mythology, which portrayed Arab women as sexual objects for male fantasy. While she often imitates the poses of Orientalist painters, she controls the gaze. Essaydi portrays her subjects clothed and covered in henna calligraphy. This stylistic choice challenges the tradition of calligraphy as a male-dominated art form.

The Artist’s Voice:

“In my art, I wish to present myself through multiple lenses—as artist, as Moroccan, as traditionalist, as Liberal, as Muslim. In short, I invite viewers to resist stereotypes.”—Lalla Essaydi, artist’s website

“There are so many layers to my work, and some of them are just for me. If the viewer does not discover it on their own, I’m not going to talk about it because I have always been told how to behave, what to say, how to see things, how to think, and I don’t want to impose that on the viewers by stating everything. I do what I do for myself, before anything else. ”—Lalla Essaydi, interview in Africa is a Country

Lalla Essaydi, Bullets Revisited #3, 2012; Triptych, chromogenic prints on aluminum, 150 x 66 in.; Courtesy of the artist, Miller Yezerski Gallery, Boston, and Edwynn Houk Gallery, NYC

Lalla Essaydi, Bullets Revisited #3, 2012; Three chromogenic prints mounted on aluminum, 66 x 150 in. overall; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Purchased with funds provided by Jacqueline Badger Mars, Sunny Scully Alsup and William Alsup, Mr. Sharad Tak and Mrs. Mahinder Tak, Marcia and Frank Carlucci, and Nancy Nelson Stevenson; © Lalla Essaydi

Revival Highlight:

Two of Essaydi’s photographs from her “Bullets Revisited” series are on view. A recent acquisition into NMWA’s permanent collection, the triptych Bullets Revisited #3 (2012) portrays a reclining woman, whose skin and garments are covered in henna calligraphy, against a background embellished in silver and gold bullet casings. By presenting this photograph in a triptych format, the fragmentation of the body denies a voyeuristic view of the figure. In Bullets Revisited #20 (2014), she cocooned her seated model with a cape encrusted with similar casings. Essaydi explains her use of bullets as a commentary on violence against women in a new post-revolutionary era following the Arab Spring.

Visit the museum and explore Revival, on view through September 10, 2017.

—Roseline Odhiambo is the summer 2017 digital engagement intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

5 Fast Facts: Anne Truitt

Posted on July 22, 2017 by Emily Haight

Impress your friends with five fast facts about artist Anne Truitt (1921–2004), whose work is on view in NMWA’s collection galleries.

Anne Truitt, Summer Dryad, 1971; Acrylic on wood; 76 x 13 x 8 inches; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of the Holladay Foundation; © Anne Truitt

Anne Truitt, Summer Dryad, 1971; Acrylic on wood; 76 x 13 x 8 inches; NMWA, Gift of the Holladay Foundation; © Anne Truitt

Anne Truitt (1921–2004)

1. Unlikely Union

Truitt straddled the line between post-World War II wild child Abstract Expressionism, known for the emotional use and gestural application of color, and its austere successor Minimalism, notable for geometric, manufactured forms. She simultaneously evokes Joan Mitchell’s expressive use of color and John McCracken’s perfect planks.

2. Minimal Representation

Truitt was one of only three women included in the groundbreaking Minimalism exhibition Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors at the Jewish Museum in 1966. Judy Chicago (then known as Judy Gerowitz) and Tina Spiro (Matkovic) also presented works in the exhibition, making the gender representation ratio one woman for every 13 men.

3. Tricky Truitt

Truitt unabashedly employed trompe l’oeil techniques to trick viewers’ eyes. Recessed bases give the impression that her works hover ever so slightly off the floor. Truitt’s subtle shifts in color create the illusion of three-dimensionality on the flat sides of her sculptures.

4. Collaborative Creation

Beginning in 1961, Truitt stopped constructing her own sculptures, focusing her time and energy instead on painting their surfaces. This begs viewers to consider the concept of authorship in relation to artworks made in collaboration.

5. Directions

In preparatory drawings for Summer Dryad (1971) Truitt assigned a cardinal direction to each side of the sculpture, suggesting the current display of the work at NMWA is how she wished for it to be installed and seen.

—Adrienne L. Gayoso is the associate educator at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Art Fix Friday: July 21, 2017

Posted on July 21, 2017 by Emily Haight

A new £10 of Jane Austen was revealed on the 200th anniversary of her death.

The Guardian reports on the new 10 note featuring Jane Austen

The Los Angeles Times reports on the new £10 note featuring Jane Austen

The Los Angeles Times reports that the note also features images of Queen Elizabeth II, Austen’s writing desk, her brother’s house, Godmersham Park, and Elizabeth Bennet. The Guardian comments on the note’s featured quote, an ironic line from Pride and Prejudice attributed to the character Caroline Bingley.

Front-Page Femmes

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts acquired 32 works of art, including work by Joan Semmel and Elizabeth Okie Paxton.

Artsy shares Karen Okonkwo’s website

Karen Okonkwo founded a new stock photography website to combat negative portrayals of black culture.

The University of Chicago Library receives a gift of nearly 500 never-before-shown Vivian Maier photographs.

Frances Gabe, known as the inventor of the self-cleaning home, died at the age of 101.

artnet explores the controversy surrounding Käthe Kollwitz’s socially engaged artwork.

Artsy celebrates Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tarot Garden, a 14-acre park populated by mystical goddess sculptures in Tuscany.

The New Yorker highlights Charlotte Salomon’s life and work

The New Yorker discusses the work of German painter Charlotte Salomon, killed in the Holocaust, whose art has been overshadowed by her life and times.

Following news of the first woman cast as the lead in the BBC television show Doctor Who, the Huffington Post applauds the increased representation of strong women in the sci-fi genre.

Nontsikelelo Mutiti’s books designs explore African identity, police brutality, and the aesthetics of hair braiding.

Maia Evrona, a recipient of a 2016 NEA grant for poetry translation, discusses how eliminating NEA grants would have a detrimental impact on the arts.

The Huffington Post interviews Broad City actress Abi Jacobson about hosting A Piece of Work, a podcast collaboration between WNYC studios and MoMA.

Artsy highlights ten women artists who helped pioneer the Land Art movement, although they never reached the same level of fame as their male counterparts.

“We live in a ‘post-truth’ world, and the truth remains difficult to find,” says Maja Bajevic.

Shows We Want to See

Sarah Lucas responds to Auguste Rodin

Sarah Lucas challenges conventions of representation in Auguste Rodin’s works with a contemporary female perspective, on view at the Legion of Honor Museum.

Teresa Burga’s exhibition at SculptureCenter “reminds viewers how narrow the contemporary art canon is, how male-driven, and how predominately focused on American and European artists.”

“Outsider artist” Beverly Buchanan’s sculpted houses are at home in Detroit, representing a longing for and connection destroyed or abandoned landscapes.

ARTnews describes Carol Rama: Antibodies at the New Museum “a show about unspeakable desires and screwed-up psychologies—everything that can’t be talked about.”

—Emily Haight is the digital editorial assistant at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Delicate & Dangerous: Cathy de Monchaux

Posted on July 20, 2017 by Emily Haight

Cathy de Monchaux, Clearing the Tracks Before They Appear, 1994; Mixed media, 33 x 33 x 3 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Heather and Tony Podesta Collection; © Cathy de Monchaux; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

Cathy de Monchaux (b. 1960, London, England)

Although at first glance Cathy de Monchaux’s work seems to mimic bodily forms, closer inspection reveals an act of fusion at work. With obsessive attention to detail, de Monchaux joins soft, vulnerable, seemingly organic components with sharp metallic points or hooks. The marriage of paradoxical materials elicits contradictory feelings from her audience. While the flesh-like material evokes an uncomfortable recognition, the cruel, protruding metals inspire an awed fear; if the soft, voluptuous shapes summon lust, the jutting spikes repulse empathy.

The Artist’s Voice:

“I use the erotic as a metaphor for angst. A lot of people’s angst comes from how they relate to other human beings, and a lot of that is to do with attraction and repulsion. Every relationship becomes fraught after the first burst of enthusiasm, and I suppose I use the whole erotic thing as a metaphor for that fraught-ness.”—Cathy de Monchaux, in an interview with The Telegraph

Revival Highlight:

Rather than rely on representation, de Monchaux uses the power of suggestion to draw in her viewer, promising manifold possibilities within a singular form. Her luxurious wall pieces Don’t Touch My Waist (1998) and Clearing the Tracks Before They Appear (1994) lure the viewer in with appearances evocative of sumptuous, feminine clothing. But the former’s jagged hooks and the latter’s subtle metal teeth keep any would-be-wearers at bay, promising pain in place of any decorative pleasure that might otherwise be derived. Blending pain and pleasure, distance and proximity, injury and protection, de Monchaux simultaneously evokes the joys and the fears of femininity, revealing how eroticism encompasses the whole spectrum of danger and safety.

Cathy de Monchaux, Red, 1999; Brass, copper, velvet, leather, canvas, steel, graphite, and thread, 14 x 46 x 34 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Heather and Tony Podesta Collection; © Cathy de Monchaux; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

A floor sculpture featured in Revival, Red (1999), contains fewer elements of dangerous elegance, opting instead for a more subtle approach. It appears less threatening and direct than both hanging works, lacking sharp blades or hooks. Instead the work contains a cascading center that blossoms into tender, fleshy velvet folds. But for all its sumptuousness, the central structure seems contained within the base, suggesting constriction that the surrounding belts only complement. Red’s foreboding presence underscores de Monchaux’s capacity for creating disquieting work in all shapes and forms.

Visit the museum and explore Revival, on view through September 10, 2017.

—Xiaoxiao Meng is the 2017 publications and communications/marketing intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Reading Between the Lines: Fanny Sanín

Posted on July 18, 2017 by Emily Haight

The exhibition Equilibrium: Fanny Sanín, on view through October 29, 2017, presents studies and finished paintings by abstract artist Fanny Sanín (b. 1938, Bogotá, Colombia). The exhibition features compositions on paper and canvas spanning 56 years of the artist’s career.

Installation view of Equilibrium: Fanny Sanín

Sanín began her artistic practice at the University of the Andes before attending the University of Illinois, and the Chelsea School of Art and the Central School of Art in London. She moved to the U.S. in 1971 and currently lives in New York and travels regularly to Bogotá.

Sanín’s practice focuses on geometric structure, color, order, and harmony; all elements she executes meticulously on both small and large surfaces. After her exposure to abstract art during her final years in school, she chose to pursue abstraction as a way to focus on color and form.

Fanny Sanín, Composition No. 1, 2016; Acrylic and pencil on paper, 25 1/2 x 40 in.; Courtesy of the artist

Through the range of works featured in the exhibition, viewers gain insight into Sanín’s artistic process—just as remarkable as her finished products. Creating between four and eighteen studies before working on a final composition, Sanín refines her color choices and structure, altering minute details to convey her intended meaning.

Fanny Sanín, Small Study No. 4, 1973; Gouache on paper; Courtesy of the artist

In a series of four small studies from 1973, Sanín primarily paints vertical lines of different weights and colors, stimulating visual interest through the juxtaposition of complementary and contrasting colors. These studies mark a pivotal transition in Sanín’s art toward her signature color-blocking technique. Her more recent studies and finished paintings demonstrate the maturity of her color palette and her eye for symmetry, order, and balance. The exhibition also displays some of the artist’s early works in watercolor from 1960, 1961, and 1968, in which she worked in a more gestural abstract style before turning to geometric abstraction.

These non-objective abstract works by Sanín demonstrate her intellectual creativity and curiosity. Historically, women artists were judged to be most skilled at copying the natural world rather than inventing original compositions. Even in the field of abstract art, they have been seen as imitators or followers of their male peers. The significant and dynamic contributions of women such as Sanín to abstraction have only recently begun to be fully recognized.

This exhibition explores abstraction from the preliminary stages of the artist’s process to the final works. Equilibrium: Fanny Sanín is on view in the Teresa Lozano Long Gallery of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Visit the museum to see Sanín’s works in person!

—Roseline Odhiambo is the summer 2017 digital engagement intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Wonder Women in the NMWA Library

Posted on July 17, 2017 by Emily Haight

This summer the blockbuster film Wonder Woman has already earned more than $724 million. The NMWA Library and Research Center staff could not resist swinging their own golden lasso by presenting Wonder Women!, a celebration of women who are fearless, adventurous, and larger than life. Drawn from the wide-ranging holdings of the library’s special collections, this exhibition features women of both fact and fiction demonstrating great bravery and taking action against the wrongs of the world.

The Wonder Women! exhibition was inspired by the NMWA Library’s recent acquisition of the first regular monthly issue of the feminist Ms. magazine, founded by Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pittman Hughes, which hit newsstands in July 1972. In an effort to visually differentiate Ms. from other women’s magazines, the staff selected an image of Wonder Woman for the cover, fighting for “peace and justice in ’72.”

Cover of the first regular monthly issue of Ms. magazine

The illustration was by Murphy Anderson, a longtime artist for DC Comics. The banner “Wonder Woman for President” likely references Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm’s bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president that year. Anderson also reflects the country’s anxiety about the war in Vietnam as a giant Wonder Woman strides with urgency down a main street in America, rescuing part of the town with her golden lasso, while shielding the street from a raging jungle battlefield placed uncomfortably close behind the shop fronts.

The cover was also timely as a reboot of the Wonder Woman comic book was due to be published in 1973—this time with its first woman editor, Dorothy Woolfolk. Ms. magazine featured Wonder Woman on the cover again for its 40th anniversary issue in 2012. The 2012 issue featured Wonder Woman bounding down Pennsylvania Avenue, the site of famous women’s rights marches for more than a century.

The article inside, “Wonder Woman Revisited” by Joanne Edgar, quotes the character’s originator, Charles Moulton: “Wonder Woman has force bound by love and, with her strength, represents what every woman should be and really is. She corrects evil and brings happiness. Wonder Woman proves that women are superior to men because they have love in addition to force.” The combination of strength and love is apparent in the materials featured in Wonder Woman!, from Judy Chicago shedding the patriarchy of her given name, to lighthouse keeper Grace Darling who risked her life on a night in 1838 to save victims of a shipwreck.

Visit NMWA’s Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center to celebrate the legacy of wonder women!

—Sarah Osborne Bender is the director of the Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Art Fix Friday: July 14, 2017

Posted on July 14, 2017 by Emily Haight

MoMA and WNYC Studios released the first episodes of the podcast A Piece of Work, hosted by Broad City star Abbi Jacobson. The podcast features Jacobson in conversation with museum curators and artists, as well as celebrity guests like Questlove, RuPaul, and Tavi Gevinson.

EW celebrates A Piece of Work

Focusing on a different theme in each episode, the down-to-earth podcast delves into some of the most frequently asked questions about modern art, highlighting the ways in which the works discussed are remarkable. New episodes are available every Monday and Wednesday.

Front-Page Femmes

Google Doodle celebrates Japanese designer Eiko Ishioka on her 79th birthday.

The Los Angeles Times describes Analia Saban’s work as a “delicious, delirious, mind-bending experience.”

Morgan O’Hara hand copied the U.S. Constitution as her own personal form of artistic protest.

Colette Fu’s pop-up project

Colette Fu will build the biggest pop-up book in the world inside the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center.

Filmmaker Leanne Anderson worked with Google and the National Film Board of Canada to make Bear 71 VR, an interactive documentary tracking the life of one grizzly bear.

A letter written by Jane Austen in 1812, in which she criticizes another novelist, sold for more than $200,000 at auction.

Zanele Muholi’s series of 365 self-portraits express her personal experiences as well as media reports dealing with hate crimes and oppression.

The New Yorker reflects on Talking to Women, a short book of the edited transcripts of conversations that novelist and screenwriter Nell Dunn had with nine of her friends, published in 1965.

Creative Boom highlights Tove Jansson

Illustrator Tove Jansson’s retrospective showcases 150 works that trace her career, from surrealist-inspired paintings to satirical cartoons.

Marion Belanger investigates landscapes along the San Andreas Fault and the Mid-Atlantic Rift.

Director Reed Morano discusses the aesthetic and direction of The Handmaid’s Tale TV series, which was recently nominated for 13 Emmy awards.

The Atlantic explores the geological term roche moutonnée to describe glacial mountains. The article illustrates the term—often translated as “sheepback”—by using Rosa Bonheur’s painting Sheep by the Sea, in NMWA’s collection.

Dancer and choreographer Okwui Okpokwasili discusses a documentary about her breakout solo performance.

Shows We Want to See

Whitechapel Gallery features Emma Hart’s work

Whitechapel Gallery features Max Mara Art Prize winner Emma Hart’s new large-scale installation. The exhibition is the result of the artist’s time in Italy studying family psychology and the tradition of maiolica, tin-glazed pottery made in Faenza since the 14th century.

Bustle shares its takeaways from NSFW: Female Gaze, an exhibition at the Museum of Sex in New York City. The show features work by 20 women artists who interpret the female gaze.

Promises to Keep features self-portraiture and performance art by 12 Pakistani women artists.

The exhibition Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter explores the visibility and camouflage of the black female experience.

—Emily Haight is the digital editorial assistant at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Mixed Media Majesty: Petah Coyne

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Emily Haight

Installation view of Petah Coyne’s Untitled #781 (1994); Photo: Yassine El Mansouri

Petah Coyne (b. 1953, Oklahoma City)

Called the “queen of mixed media,” Petah Coyne creates attention-grabbing sculptural works and photographs. Examples of both are on view in Revival. Her sculptures incorporate unusual materials like wax, sand, silk flowers, and taxidermy animals. Coyne’s massive forms are often seen suspended from the ceiling or snaking up gallery walls. She breathes new life into objects that may not otherwise be used, and incorporates obscured forms of the human body. Coyne spends years with each piece, and her creative process is as mysterious to her as the works themselves appear to viewers.

The Artist’s Voice:

“When material seems devoid of life, of possibility, I want even more to make something of it. I have an obsessive attraction to these kinds of materials. They are functionless yet carry all sorts of associations and memories.”—Petah Coyne, interview with Carrie Pryzbilla

“All of my pieces seem fragile. But that is deceiving, because they’re all begun with steel understructures. Yet I want each one to look incredibly delicate and to have that feminine sense of appearing soft and seductive. But as any number of women have shown, we have an internal strength and drive that is hard to fathom.”—Petah Coyne, interview in Sculpture Magazine

Installation view of Petah Coyne’s Untitled #1287 (Tati) (2009); Photo: Yassine El Mansouri

Revival Highlight:

Revival features sculptural and photographic work by Coyne that can evoke a range of emotions. Her photograph Untitled #885 (Saucer Baby) (1997) evokes feelings of playfulness, like the child in the pool, but also has a haunting quality. The intrigue and extravagance of the layers of wax and other media in her large-scale works Untitled #1287 (Tati) (2009) and Untitled #781 (1994) jog memories and form new associations in the viewer’s mind.

Untitled #1287 (Tati) features a taxidermy goose diving into a swirl of deep purple velvet and wax-dipped silk flowers. Coyne’s use of a stuffed bird and fake flowers recall associations with the past-life of “dead” objects. Lush and dramatic, Coyne’s work presents a spectacle that grabs and holds the viewer’s gaze.

Visit the museum and explore Revival, on view through September 10, 2017.

—Meghan Masius was the spring 2017 publications and communications/marketing intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Artist Spotlight: Patricia Tobacco Forrester

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Emily Haight

Revel in the beauty of nature captured by Patricia Tobacco Forrester (1940–2011) in her large-scale watercolor works on view at NMWA. The artist’s work is characterized by expansive compositions filled with vibrant hues.

Forester’s affinity for nature began at a young age. A New England native, Forrester grew up on a small farm in Western Massachusetts. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Smith College in 1962. Originally a printmaker, Forrester studied under sculptor and graphic artist Leonard Baskin and later received a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University in 1965.

Patricia Tobacco Forrester, Bronzed Roses, 1991; Watercolor, 40 x 60 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Promised Gift of Steven Scott, Baltimore, in Memory of the Artist; © The Estate of Patricia Tobacco Forrester

Forrester produced some of her best known works in Washington, D.C, where she lived for nearly 30 years. She painted almost exclusively outdoors, finding inspiration in neighborhood parks and gardens around the city, including the National Arboretum. She once said, “I think I know almost every tree and flower there.” For Forrester’s artistic practice, working from photographs was not sufficient. She preferred painting en plein air, because of the wealth of visual information provided in nature. Light also played a key role in her work. When choosing a location to paint, the artist focused on areas with a dramatic interplay of light with surrounding trees and vegetation.

NMWA visitor gazes at Barbados (left) and Bronzed Roses (right); Photo: Madeline Barnes, NMWA

A visitor gazes at Patricia Tobacco Forrester’s Barbados (1995) at the left and Bronzed Roses (1991) at the right; Photo: Madeline Barnes, NMWA

Unconcerned with realistic depictions, Forrester enjoyed inconsistencies and distortions in her work. She often described her paintings as abstract and enjoyed the “accidental nature of watercolor” as a medium. She dove into each scene with little to no preparatory sketching. This technique allowed her pieces to evolve naturally, influenced both by the natural properties of her watercolors and by her personal response to her surroundings.

During the winter months, when D.C. weather was not conducive to working outside, Forrester often ventured to more tropical locales. One of her favorite destinations outside of the D.C. area was Costa Rica. Her work from abroad depicts lush and intricate rainforest scenes, integrating components from a multitude of sites. Forrester masterfully created vibrant, layered compositions.

Visit NMWA to see two of Forrester’s large-scale watercolors, Bronzed Roses (1991) and Barbados (1995), on view in the third floor galleries.

—Caroline Cress was the spring 2017 development events intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Broad Strokes: The National Museum of Women in the Arts' Blog

The National Museum of Women in the Arts is the only museum in the world dedicated exclusively to recognizing the contributions of women artists.

Lasting Impressions: Women Printmakers in Early Modern Italy

Returning the Gaze: Lalla Essaydi

5 Fast Facts: Anne Truitt

Art Fix Friday: July 21, 2017

Delicate & Dangerous: Cathy de Monchaux

Reading Between the Lines: Fanny Sanín

Wonder Women in the NMWA Library

Art Fix Friday: July 14, 2017

Mixed Media Majesty: Petah Coyne

Artist Spotlight: Patricia Tobacco Forrester