Women, Surrealism & Abstraction - Exhibition & Audio Tour
During the 20th century, art made by women was often overlooked or dismissed by museums, collectors, and art historians. Drawn exclusively from the Museum collection, Women, Surrealism, and Abstraction endeavors to look beyond typical art historical boundaries and to begin to lay claim to a more holistic and complex view of art history—one that includes parties left out because of aesthetic biases based on a system of privileged white male patrimony.
01 - Maud Oakes, Where the Two Came to Their Father
Born in Seattle, Washington in 1903, Maud Oakes grew up in New York City surrounded by the artistic culture of the 1920s.
02 - Magaret De Patta, Photogram
Born in Tacoma, Washington in 1903, Margaret De Patta spent most of her life in San Diego, California where she studied painting at the California School of Fine Arts.
03 - Pamela Boden, The Magician's Castle
Pamela Boden was born in Derbyshire, England in 1905 and moved to Munich, Germany when she was 17 to study art and music.
04 - Gertrude Barrer, Untitled
Gertrude Barrer was born in New York City in 1921 and studied at the ArtStudent’s League and the University of Iowa from 1939-1943. She is quoted as saying “Art is a religion and a way of life to me.
05 - Rachel Curley, Rug
Rachel Curley is a Navajo artist who was born in 1921 and introduced to weaving rugs at an early age. She grew up in New Mexico and lived there until her death in 2000.
06 - Amy Freeman Lee, Private Life of Plant Series: Mystical Geometry
Amy Freeman Lee was born in 1914 and spent her life in Texas where she became known for modernist landscape and western scene painting and sculpture.
07 - Lynda Benglis, Untitled
Born in Lake Charles, Louisiana in 1941, Lynda Benglis graduated from Newcomb College in 1964 and became a third-grade teacher.
08 - Lillian Elliott, Untitled Wall Hanging
Lillian Elliott was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1930. She earned degrees in art education from Wayne State University and painting from the Cranbrook Academy of Art.