WITNESS
Women Artists Depict Women
Works from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries
THE ANNEX GALLERIES 2024
ã 2024 The Annex Galleries 604 College Avenue
Santa Rosa, CA 95404
Cover image: Judy Dater: “Inis and Amal (Cairo),” chromogenic photo print, 1980; p. 8
In recent years, the art world has seen drastic changes in its attitude toward artists who’ve been relegated to “minority” status: women, people of color, LGBTQ+, and others The Annex Galleries has observed this evolution since 1971 and, in keeping with our goal of illuminating overlooked and forgotten artists, it is our hope that we can add to these much needed changes.
In our exhibition, Witness: Women Artists Depict Women, we highlight a selection of our inventory that demonstrates how women artists – with respect to those who identify with that gender label – have captured the lives of their peers. Whether images of strangers, family, lovers, or in self-portrait, the observations of the artists are wholly personal, resisting the expectations of the male gaze and Western beauty standards to dwell instead in the delight of the everyday, in the surreal and the spiritual, and in the freedom of art for art’s sake.
It is our hope that this exhibition furthers the recognition of those who have flown under the radar for too long owing merely to their gender, and helps pave the way for all underrepresented artists of the future.
Oona Risling-ShollThe Annex Galleries
Isa Aderne (Brazilian: 1923 – 2019)
“Cinema Iris” – from Album de Xilogravuras woodcut; 1967; 26/50; 7-7/8 x 7” image size; signed; on Japanese hosho. $250.
In "Cinema Iris," a simple urban scene in the lobby of a movie theater is brought to life by Brazilian artist Isa Aderne’s bold Expressionist style and attention to particular details: posters, painted decor, and the outfits of the two women – sisters, perhaps - as they head into the theater to enjoy a film. This image is number 7 from her portfolio of 18 woodcuts featuring the everyday lives of Brazilian people, titled Album de Xilogravuras (Album of Woodcuts).
Aderne’s formal schooling introduced her to the work of German Expressionism, which greatly influenced her work throughout her life. She was known for portraying scenes of everyday life and people that would otherwise be deemed unworthy of artistic tribute.
The title of this piece refers to the Cine Iris, a film and live-show theater that still operates in the city of Rio de Janeiro today.
Muriel Mitchell Branegan Bacon (American: 1902 - 2002)
“Kheira”
India ink drawing; ca. 1950; 12 x 13-5/8” image size; signed; on cardstock. $300.
Brief, saturated brushstrokes form a lush portrait of a woman with her hair pinned in a loose chignon, dark eyes evoking Edvard Munch’s “Madonna.” Though greatly influenced by the Fauvists, San Francisco Bay Area-based artist Muriel Branegan Bacon’s style was decidedly her own She studied at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute), the Art Students League in New York, and the Academie Julien, Paris.
Bacon often focused on the daily lives of women in the places she traveled: Morocco, Hawaii, the American Southwest, and more. Though she was primarily known for her oils, she was equally adept at watercolor and ink wash drawings, coaxing from these mediums a sensuous, sure weight.
Despite a prolific career in which she exhibited in numerous major solo and group exhibitions, she died in obscurity in Sebastopol, California.
Isabel Bishop (American: 1902 - 1988)
“Seated Woman with Hat”
engraving, 1949/printed 1981; 45/50; 5-7/8 x 4” platemark; signed; on cream Rives wove. Published by Associated American Artists, ref. AAA 2530; Teller 44. $400
A woman in an elaborate hat and furs sits with legs crossed, cigarette in hand, waiting. Her face, shown in side profile, expresses a sense of resignation. In her usual style, Isabel Bishop chooses a deceptively simple scene and touches it with intrigue, illustrating a woman of means whose body language lends an air of the relatable: the vestiges of a long and tiring day.
A student of the New York School of Applied Design and the Art Students League, Bishop made her first etching in 1925. The following year she opened her Manhattan studio overlooking Union Square at Broadway and Fourteenth Street. She is known for depicting urban life and was a leading member of the Fourteenth Street School of artists. In 1932, she joined the Midtown Gallery in Manhattan, with which she remained closely affiliated for the rest of her life.
Dorr Bothwell (American: 1902 - 2000)
“Model Seated”
conte crayon drawing; 1933; 16 x 9” image size; signed; on thin cream wove. $2,000.
In the early 1920s Doris “Dorr” Hodgson Bothwell took courses in sculpture from Ralph Stackpole in San Francisco, who was greatly influenced by the work of Mexican painter Diego Rivera. The style of the Mexican Modernist sculptors, painters, and muralists influenced many of the leading modern artists of California, and this is likely where Bothwell's stylized imagery came from. In 1928 the California School of Fine Arts graduate traveled to Samoa, living and working as an artist for several months. Her output from this time centered greatly on the human figure, and on her return to the States she continued to draw inspiration from her time there. This elegantly executed drawing came from that period.
Dorr Bothwell (American: 1902 - 2000)
“Samoan Lady Eating Her Dinner” graphite drawing; 1928; 7-11/16 x 7-1/4” image size; signed; on cream wove. $900.
In her first images of the island of Samoa - where she landed in summer of 1928 - Bothwell's figures could be mistaken for the preliminary mural sketches of Mexican Modernist artists: voluminous, rounded shapes with minimal detail, keeping the visual information relegated to a brief and intimate moment. Indeed, her time at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco likely introduced her to the Modernism that influenced her work throughout her career.
In this image, a Samoan woman with her hair pulled back in a shell comb dines from a spread of root vegetables and meat baked in banana leaves.
Imogen Cunningham (American: 1883 - 1976)
“Girl Holding Siamese Cat” photograph; 1951; not editioned; 7-7/16 x 6-9/16” image size; signed; on semigloss photopaper. $1,750.
With her trademark candid style, celebrated American photographer Imogen Cunningham captures a tender scene between a girl and her kitten, draped in a ray of sunlight. By 1951 Cunningham had been a professional and fine art photographer for 40 years, and while adept at capturing those subjects that pleased the general public – dancers, botanical studies, portraits of celebrities – she was equally known for her probing, intimate images of everyday people and the innerworkings of the human condition. Like Dorothea Lange, she was foremost in the ranks of American art-world celebrity in the 20th century.
Despite the recognition, Cunningham appeared unfazed by accolades. No small moment escaped her notice, finding beauty in the simplest of scenes, as with this image.
Ann Chassar Dallas (Scottish: 1908 - 1997)
“Fin du Marché” woodengraving; ca. 1930; 3/35; 4 x 7-1/4” image size; signed; on fine tissue laid. $225.
“Fin du Marché” translates to “End of Market,” and in this woodengraving Dallas depicts a group of Breton women packing up their unsold wares, wearing traditional Breton costume.
Little is found on Scottish artist Ann Chassar Dallas. It is known that she was a watercolorist, lithographer, and wood engraver influenced by Iain Macnab. Though it’s unknown if she attended Macnab’s Grosvenor School, Dallas exhibited with Grosvenor artists at Redfern Gallery and New English Art Club (NEAC) in London.
Judy Dater (American: born 1941)
“Inis and Amal (Cairo)”
chromogenic photo print; 1980; not editioned;18-1/4 x 14-1/4” image size; signed; on semigloss Kodak paper. Ref.: Enyeart, p.81, pl. 58 and cover. $2,000.
Photographer Judy Dater is known for her images of women, both in their daily lives and as the subjects of conceptual art. Here, she shows a mother and daughter in Cairo, Egypt, in a portrait that echoes the drama of Dutch Master oils, but highlights the way in which women artists of the 20th century had freedom to portray one another: strong, unflinching, and straightforward in their beauty. This image is illustrated both within (p. 81, fig. 58) and on the cover of Judy Dater: Twenty Years by James L. Enyeart, in association with De Saisset Museum, University of Santa Clara, 1986.
Dater studied with Imogen Cunningham and Ansel Adams. She continues to work and exhibit today.
Mathilde de Cordoba (American: 1875 - 1942)
Untitled (profile of a girl) drypoint; ca. 1936; edition ca. 25; 5-7/16 x 3-7/16” platemark; signed; on antique-white wove. Published by the New York Federal Art Project (stamp, lower left margin) $400.
Despite her immense talent and prolific output, the growing reputation of New York artist Mathilde De Cordoba - which had reached Paris and London by the 1920s - ended around 1925 when she suddenly lost most of her eyesight to illness. She received corrective surgery just prior to the Great Depression, when opportunities to network, exhibit, and sell at a gallery were very rare. When the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was formed and the Federal Art Project (FAP) arrived in New York City, de Cordoba was hired as a printmaker. By then in her 60s, she restarted her career and found some measure of success once more. She continued to make prints until her death in 1942; the New York FAP published her final etching in 1943.
Pele de Lappe (American: 1916 - 2007)
(Self-portrait)
graphite on paper; 1930; 12-1/8 x 9-15/16” image size; signed; on thin cream wove $1,000
De Lappe’s teenage self-portrait foretells a life of adventure and singular determination, with her Mona Lisa expression and jaunty fedora. One year after completing this ebullient drawing in San Francisco, California, Phyllis “Pele” de Lappe moved to Woodstock, New York in 1931 at the age of just fifteen. The daughter of commercial artist and Marxist Wesley de Lappe, Pele had already been a student at the California School of Fine Arts for a year, studying under Arnold Blanche, and had decided to try her luck in the artists hubs of the East Coast. She found inspiration in the nightlife of Harlem, and worked with Alfred Siqueiros and Diego Riviera.
When she returned to the Bay Area in 1934, she immersed herself in the Maritime Workers strike and became an activist in the labor movement. In addition to her fine art, she worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for The People’s World, The New Masses, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Her artwork would reflect her sociopolitical sensibilities for the rest of her career, capturing the lives of everyday people. She documented her extraordinary life in her 2002 autobiography, Pele: A Passionate Journey through Art and the Red Press
Maria de los Angeles (American: born 1988)
Untitled (group of four figures) color monotype; unique; 2013; 13-3/8 x 19-3/4” image size; signed; on heavy cream wove. $550.
In this painterly monotype Maria de los Angeles creates a visual montage of five distinctive female figures, each drawn in the style of a different genre, that pull together as a complete image as if on a stage. Elements of Fauvism, Cubism, Mexican Modernism, and Abstract Expressionism can be found in her linework and color palette.
In her artwork, New York-based, Mexican-born de los Angeles often addresses her immigrant journey from Mexico to the U.S. as a young girl, and the issues of identity and belonging in the United States. Here, she pays a passing tribute to artists who have contributed to her journey, most notably Picasso and the leading Mexican painters of the early 20th century: Kahlo, Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros.
Maria Downey (American: active 1960s – 1990s)
“Olympia Hermited” etching; ca. 1980; 6/9; 17-5/8 x 23-7/8” platemark; signed; on cream wove. $350.
A visual reference to Manet's “Olympia” oil painting, only in this instance, the woman is alone (save for the cat at her feet) and does not face the viewer. Instead, she watches television in the buff while lounging with her hair down, slipper dangling from her foot, suggesting an air of delightfully uninhibited relaxation.
Much of Maria Downey's career remains a mystery. At one point she was based in California, and was a member of the College Art Association with whom she exhibited in the mid 1990s She received a fellowship from the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Monoghan, Ireland to study printmaking in the early 1990s, where much of her work addressed The Troubles From 1993 through 1998 she was associated with a collective of nine artists in Thousand Oaks, California who exhibited together in a space they managed called Gallery 9.
Maria Downey is listed in the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art section of the Archives of American Art. Much of her work is concerned with social realism.
“Fabulous Lady, Oaxaca, Mexico” - from the Oaxacan Portraits series silver gelatin print; not editioned; 2005; 15-3/16 x 15-3/16” image size; signed; on matte photopaper. $350.
Seattle-based conceptual fine art photographer Nancy Edelstein traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico in 2005/'06, as part of a traveling workshop in photography. From her time there she compiled a portfolio of images of people in their daily lives, simply titled "Oaxacan Portraits.” Here, she captures a woman standing against the interior courtyard of an old adobe house, surrounded by carved masks. Her expression is coy, verging on laughter, and lends an intimacy to the composition.
Edelstein continues to work and exhibit her fine art photography, as well as design and publish art books.
Nancy Jo Edelstein (American: born 1951)
Therese Eisenmann (Austrian: born 1953)
“Hexenskizzen – Blatt III” (Pl. III from Witches Sketches) etching and aquatint; IX/10; 1977; 12-7/8 x 21-1/2” platemark; signed; on ivory wove. $350.
This is the third image from a series of five etchings titled Witches Sketches by Therese Eisenmann. A coven of witches assemble around an animal skull, engaging in a ritual; it’s intentionally unclear whether the figures are tiny or the skull is enormous Her linework and tonality, and even the imagery itself, brings to mind many of Goya's haunting and somewhat surreal intaglios for the Caprichos and Disasters of War series.
Austrian printmaker Therese Eisenmann has spent much of her artistic life in solitary pursuits, living partially outdoors in in various mountain regions in the summers and in retreats in the winters. Her recurring imagery reflects the themes of nature, solitude, and the female form. Of her work Eisenmann has said, “Since the beginning of my artistic career, I have been concerned with women; the situation of women reflects my own personality.”
“Iniciaciones”
silver gelatin print; 1989; 10-1/8 x 10-5/16” image size; signed; on Kodak photopaper. Rare only print; intended edition of 50 never realized. $2,000.
Oweena Camille Fogarty began her formal studies in political science, but after exposure to the work of photographers Joan Fontcuberta and Louis Poirot in Europe, she turned her focus to photography. A circuitous path led her from street photography in her home state of California to an apprenticeship with photographer Don Manuel Alvarez Bravo in Mexico. This experience further molded her focus, now on the connections between art and spirituality.
“[The work from this period] is magic realism, taken from religious references in Mexico from 1980- 1996. In 1992, after working for almost 10 years with artistic groups in Mexico, I decided I needed to understand more about primary cultures, and both Mexico and Cuba preserve cultures of great traditions I disappeared from the artistic scene from 1996-2002.”
Fogarty continues to work creatively across multiple mediums, and has been a member of Mexico’s System for National Creators (FONCA) for 15 years.
Oweena Camille Fogarty (American/Mexican: born 1952)
May Gearhart (American: 1872 - 1951)
“Three Czechs”; also called: “Take It or Leave It” color aquatint and etching; ca. 1929; note editioned, presumed less than 25; 3 x 2-7/8” platemark; signed; on cream velin. $400.
Three women engage in animated conversation at the outdoor market in this this rare colorful aquatint by Pasadena-based Arts and Crafts printmaker May Gearhart. Another impression from this edition was exhibited in 1930 at the Chicago Society of Etchers annual exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago.
One of three artist sisters (along with Frances and Edna) born to Stephen and Emma Gearhart, Southern California artist May studied under Arthur Wesley Dow at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and with Hans Hoffman at the University of California, Berkeley. She would become a popular Arts and Crafts painter, printmaker, and educator, who co-founded the Print Makers of Los Angeles association, later to merge with the Printmakers Society of California. Her work can be found in major museums throughout the U.S.
“The Introvert”
lithograph; ca. 1940; not editioned; 10-1/8 x 8-15/16” image size; signed; buff Japan wove. $300.
London-born, San Francisco Bay Area-raised Elizabeth Ginno was a printmaker, painter, draftsperson, and illustrator who studied at Mills College, the California College of Arts and Crafts (now the California College of the Arts), and the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). She worked for the WPA during the Depression as a printmaker and print demonstrator around the time that this work was made.
Ginno’s style was not easily categorized, as she worked in everything from straight-forward representation to the fully abstract. Of the former, her work usually focused on women, as seen here. A woman is shown with eyes demurely downcast, a wide-brimmed hat lowered to her brow as if to hide herself. The image is intriguing for its secrecy; appealing for its relatability.
Elizabeth de Gebele Ginno (American: 1907 - 1991)
Greenwood (American: 1909 – 1970)
“Dancer”
lithograph; 1966; proof, outside of edition of 250; 11-3/4 x 18” image size; signed; on ivory wove. Published by the Associated American Artists, ref.: AAA 1680 $350.
Her many years of portraying people in murals, prints, and paintings gave Marion Greenwood an eye for posture and physical expression, and her portrait of a young dancer at rest in a pose of sensuous relaxation invites admiration without the burden of overt sexuality or theatrical caricaturizing. Greenwood is an artist who simply appreciates the human form.
Greenwood’s work focused on laborers, the poor, minorities, and anyone living on the fringes of society as the world grappled with two World Wars and the Great Depression. She worked for the WPA as a muralist trained by Diego Riviera in Mexico, and in World War II was America’s only female war-artist correspondent, assigned by the Army Medical Department to capture the rehabilitation units and the care of wounded soldiers. Her full life took her to Paris, China, Burma, Haiti, and throughout the U.S.
Greenwood would go on to work, exhibit, and teach throughout the U.S. and abroad.
Marion
Marion Greenwood (American: 1909 – 1970)
Untitled portrait
ink wash drawing; ca. 1946; 13-1/2 x 10-1/2” image size; signed; on heavy cream wove. $750.
Greenwood lived in Hong Kong for a year beginning in 1946, and traveled throughout China and Burma, capturing images of the people she met along the way. On her return to the states the next year she was given a solo exhibition of many of these works by the Associated American Artists (AAA) at their gallery in New York. This ink-wash sketch of a women with her hair pulled into a chignon, face a mask of intense focus or meditation, may very well have been a part of that show. The style is exemplary of early mid-century Modernism and of Greenwood’s ease with the fluid nature of the ink brush.
Haas (American: 1926 - 2002)
“The
Egyptian”
ink drawing; 1946; 10-11/16 x 8-7/8” image size; signed; on thin cream wove. $475.
German-born, Texas-raised Hildegarde Haas was known primarily for her Abstract Expressionist woodcuts of the 1940s and ‘50s, but her oeuvre included oils painting, watercolor, and drawing. Haas was known to have “synesthesia,” a condition that allowed her the ability to visualize music as rhythmic shapes and even colors. She frequently utilized this condition in her artwork.
In this angular, lively drawing of an Egyptian woman, dressed in traditional robes and accoutrement, there is a sense of staccato movement throughout: in the folds of her dress, in the leaves of an obliging pothos zigzag across the matrix, and even in the lines on the woman’s face, leading the eye across the paper as though seen through kaleidoscopic glass.
Hildegarde
Dorothy Barbara Thomas Haddaway (American: 1902 - 1992)
Untitled (five Art Deco fashion plate sketches) color pencil; 1930; each image approximately 9 x 2”; signed; on cardstock. $625.
Little is found on the life of Los Angeles-based Barbara Haddaway (née Thomas), though it’s known that she studied design at Chouinard Art Institute in the late 1920s. These five small pieces comprise just a small example of the prolific output of an artist who came into her own during the Art Deco design boom of the late 1920s and ‘30s. Her experience included sign and advertising designs for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games and murals for the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition, and the window dressing designs of Bullock’s luxury department store in Los Angeles. She was also an accomplished watercolorist and frequently depicted scenes of the Southwest and Southern California.
These five drawings, fashionable ladies rendered in bright color pencil, may have been done for an advertisement or other commission. Another possibility is that they were intended for use in interior design, as there exists a porcelain tile by Haddaway of similar design.
Elizabeth Keith (Scottish: 1887 - 1956)
“Two Little Girls Playing Ball”; or: “Japanese Children of Yesterday” color woodcut; 1925; unnumbered, from intended edition of 100 (not completed); 13-9/16 x 111/4” image size; signed; on ivory hosho. Ref.: Miles 102. sdae$2,700.
Scottish-born, self-taught Elizabeth Keith first visited Japan around 1915 with her sister and brother-in-law, and ended up staying there for nine years, eventually working with the famous publisher Shosaburo Watanabe. This proved to be a successful professional relationship, as she enjoyed great success through the 1920s and ‘30s. However, as the world barreled toward the Second World War, anti-Japanese sympathies in Britain and America closed the market for Japanese art. Keith’s career was effectively ended, but she continued to work as an artist on her own time. Renewed interest in her art in the 1990s has since revived her place in art history.
Here, Keith depicts two Japanese children dressed in traditional, intricately patterned robes, playing with a kamifusen, a delicate, hollow "ball" made of colored wax paper. Keith renders the background in neutral tones to allow the vivid costumes and ball to pop forward, and illuminates the playful image with a soft golden light filtering through shoji panels.
Margaret Kidder (American: 1904 - 1959)
“The Young Moon”
lithograph; ca. 1930; not editioned; 17-3/4 x 14” image size; signed; on Arches wove. $300.
Before the dramatic turn of events that liberation movements brought for women in the mid-20th century, grappling with the human condition was seen as a predominantly male pursuit in the art world. However, Margaret Kidder’s work strongly evokes and honors this struggle in a subtle, delicate, and decidedly feminine approach
She frequently addressed motherhood – in particular, variations of the Madonna and Child – but avoided saccharine tropes by infusing a dark, surreal style. Scenes of familial intimacy are draped in suggestions of loneliness and longing, and an eerie dreaminess permeates the shadowed landscapes that surround her figures. Kidder wielded the feminine as a tool to coax her mysterious vision onto the matrix.
Kidder’s friend and mentor, the art critic Arthur Millier, wrote of her work in the Los Angeles Times, April 12, 1936: “Hers is a …case of the individual who experiences life as a series of sacramental acts. The celebration of this sacrament forms her art.”
Käthe Kollwitz (German: 1867 - 1945)
“Betendes Mädchen (Woman Praying)”
aquatint, drypoint, & softground etching; 1892; unnumbered, early edition; 7-11/16 x 5-7/8” platemark; signed; on wove. Ref.: Knesebeck 14; Klipstein 11. $4,000.
Renowned printmaker and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz’s subject matter dealt primarily with social upheaval, the suffering of the poor and outcast, childhood death, and grief. As such, she was seen as a Realist during her career Now, she is considered one of the earliest Expressionists, and the fact of her being a woman is (and was) less of interest to her collectors than her willingness to create imagery that was starkly emotional, unafraid to address the most difficult subjects with bare honesty
Kollwitz began pursuing printmaking in 1889 at around age twenty, and "Woman Praying" is just her eleventh print, published by Verlag von Emil Richter in 1892. This impression is from the third of five states, as she developed the dramatic contrast of the dark background with the warm glow of lamplight on the profile of a young woman praying. The verso bears the collector's stamp of Dr. Richard A. Simms, a noted Southern California collector.
Marie Laurencin (French: 1883 - 1956)
“Le Chapeau sur les Yeux”
etching with hand-applied color; 1923; unnumbered, from edition of 250; 3-5/16 x 2-3/4” platemark; not signed; on Arches BFK wove. Ref.: Machesseau 67 $350.
“Why should I paint dead fish, onions, and beer glasses? Girls are so much prettier.” - Marie Laurencin.
The extraordinary life of Marie Laurencin may not have been especially unique by today’s standards, but it was controversial at the time – and she lived it openly. Born to an unwed mother in 1883, she came to art through her own means and lived as an openly bisexual woman involved in the French avant-garde.
Laurencin’s work showed a defiance of the gendered social expectations of women in the early 20th century by turning the proverbial tables. She enjoyed painting beautiful women for the sake of their beauty, much like her male counterparts would do, and only took portrait commissions from men when absolutely necessary –charging them double what she did women. This small etched portrait is from her most well-recognized period, that between the World Wars, in which she was the most prolific.
Phyllis Mary Legge (British: 1892 - 1981)
“The Market Concarneau” etching; 1927; not editioned; 6 x 6” platemark; signed; on ivory laid. $250.
Very little is found on the career or life of artist Phyllis Mary Legge. painter, printmaker, art and teacher. Her father was artist Arthur J. Legge, member of the Royal British Academy and himself a teacher. Phyllis taught at Saint Martin’s School for Art in London, and her work was published by The Studio magazine, a leading periodical of British and European artists at the time, covering both fine and decorative art. It’s therefore assumed that she must have been a relatively well connected artist, but for one reason or another, did not build a market for her work that lasted into current records.
Despite this, “The Market Concarneau” shows an experienced and gifted artist’s sensitivity of line, and a deft ability to capture a mood in a small format. The seated elderly Breton woman wears an expression of weary calm that has settled into her features. Her fresh vegetables are on display in baskets at her feet, save for a small pumpkin in her hands. Legge captures her subject with dignity
Elyse Ashe Lord (British: 1900 - 1971)
“Geisha Girl”
aquatint, drypoint, and color woodcut; c. 1920; 38/50; 8-1/4 x 3-15/16” platemark; signed; on Japanese wove. Originally sold by Ackermann & Son, Inc., NY. $600.
Elyse Ashe Lord, painter and printmaker, is well-known for works inspired by the Far East and for her unusual, multi-layered printmaking technique, which involved a combination of etching, drypoint, aquatint, and color woodcut. Interestingly, she lived her entire life in Britain, never traveling outside the bounds of her country. Yet, her imagination and penchant for reading took her to far off places, and much of her work is directly inspired by Chinese literature and what she could find of Chinese art.
Lord’s unique style applied methods already known to the printmaking world, yet combined them in unusual ways such that her works read as finely detailed and delicately hued as watercolors. Her images have a serene, dreamlike quality. Lord also designed and hand-painted many of the frames used on her prints.
Bertha Lum (American: 1869 - 1954)
“The Fox Woman”
color woodcut; 1916; no. 105 (of at least 197); 16-1/2 x 10-1/8” image size; ivory Japanese laid. Ref.: Gravalos Pulin 38, illus. p. 40 $3,500.
In Japan, foxes play an important role in the spiritual practices of the Inari shrines, and fox deities, known as kitsuri, are a popular symbol of protection. At the time of this woodcut’s creation, such a deity may have been appealing to women particularly: it was believed that any woman walking alone at night could shapeshift into a fox to protect herself from harm - or to woo a lover. Many Western artists of the early 20th century admired the deities found in the varied cultures of Asia (then still referred to as “the Orient”) and in “The Fox Woman,” Bertha Lum deftly conjures a dreamlike scene in which a woman appears to embrace an obliging kitsuri, the sun setting behind her as night approaches.
Bertha Lum is considered one of the finest color woodcut artists of her time, though she came to the medium much later in her career An impression of this work was exhibited in "Visions of the Orient: Western Women Artists in Asia 1900-1940" at the Pacific Asia Museum.
Mariette Lydis (Austrian: 1887 - 1970)
“Andrée D.” – from Criminelles, 24 portraits of women murderers etching and roulette; ca. 1928; early impression from total of 75; 6-1/8 x 3-3/4” platemark; singed; on buff wove. $350.
From a portfolio of 24 etchings of French women murderers, made by Mariette Lydis from the years 1920 to 1929 Reading the accounts in newspapers of women who committed murder in Paris, Lydis drew the criminelles from her imagination and had each subject’s name printed on newsprint with a description of her crime, simulating the text as it had appeared in the Parisian newspapers. For this one: "Andrée D....16 ans,tue une amie du meme age en lui defoncant le crane avec un pierre et la jette dans un etang." (Andrée D....16 years old, kills a friend of the same age by smashing her skull with a stone and throwing her into a pond.)
Lydis was a fiercely independent woman and artist, who traveled and lived throughout Europe beginning at age twenty and finally settled in Buenos Aires at the end of her life. Her works primarily centered on women, her style suffused with surrealism and the metaphysical, often producing haunting, dreamy bodies of work.
Mariette Lydis (Austrian: 1887 - 1970)
“Juana”
lithograph; 1947; unnumbered, edition ca. 200; 13 x 10-1/8” image size; signed; on cream wove. Ref.: Fowler, Albert: Print Survey: A Review of Recent Fine Prints, 1947, vol. 1., p. 62. $500.
Strange yet dreamy, a portrait of a young woman and a turkey is made all the more surreal by the juxtaposition of soft, lyrical linework against the startling subject matter. Lydis’ work, often erotic, is frequently oversimplified by reviewers as the semi-Surrealist output of a bisexual woman in the 1920s. In fact, her prolific body of work spanned the first half of the 20th century, and her subject matter dwelt as much in spiritual exploration and oft-overlooked female autonomy as it did erotica. Comparisons were drawn between her work and that of Odilon Redon and Dante in a 1928 review by art critic Thyra Clark in Artwork magazine, adding “…she is certainly a rare thing, a woman painter who follows no one, with as much to say that is really worth saying.”
Berthe Morisot (French: 1841 - 1895)
“Jeune fille au repose” drypoint; 1889; not editioned; 3-1/4 x 4-11/16” platemark; not signed; on cream wove. From the 1910 edition pulled from the cancelled plate by Duret; ref.: Bailly-Herzberg 7ii. $750.
Morisot’s work often depicted the private realms of women which were so darkly veiled in Victorian era Europe. The result is a legacy of images illuminating the rare moments of solitude, such as in this portrait, experienced by women without the weight of social expectations.
Though barred from formal art school due to her gender, Morisot’s bourgeois upbringing afforded her and her sisters private art lessons. It wasn’t until taking lessons from Camille Corot, however, that she flourished. She learned to paint en plein air, and soon began to explore the stylistic approach that would become Impressionism. She would become the rare exception to the rule of male-only participants in leading salons, and her work would stand alongside her peers at the seminal 1873 exhibition, “Société Anonyme des Artistes-Peintures, Sculpteurs, et Graveurs,” gaining critical acclaim from Le Figaro critic Albert Wolff.
Despite these milestones, and having overcome not only the strife that nipped at the heels of Impressionists but of women as well, Morisot was relegated for the most part to the shadows of art history until very recently.
Elena Huerta Muzquiz (Mexican: 1908 – 1998)
“La Tehuana”
color woodcut; 1970; not editioned; 14-3/8 x 8-9/16” image size; signed; on cream wove. Printed at the Taller de Grafica Popular. $750.
This color blockprint by Taller de Grafica Popular (TGP) muralist and printmaker Elena Huerta Muzquiz depicts a Zapotec mother (herself) playing with her child. She is from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and was a scholar of Mayan and pre-Columbian murals. The broad red and ocher coloring used in this print pays homage to her ancestors.
This woodcut was created in the later years of Huerta’s career, when she was in her 60s and had a long and impressive history as one of the few female Mexican muralists, a professional artist and teacher, an internationally recognized political activist, a single mother, and the director of both the Jose Guadalupe Posada Gallery and the Jose Clemente Orozco Gallery. Two years after she created this color woodcut at the TGP, she retired to Saltillo, Monterrey, Mexico, where she was invited by the mayor to create a mural of the town’s history. She agreed, and worked for nearly three years to design and execute what became the largest mural by a woman in Mexico’s history, done in the traditional Mexican Muralist style.
Augusta Rathbone (American: 1897 – 1990)
“Portrait of Frances Lloyd” etching/etching and color aquatint; Artist Proof/unnumbered impression from edition ca. 10; 1940; 9-3/4 x 7-1/4” platemarks; both signed; on Arches laid. Shown in two states: one before the addition of color aquatint, one after $225./$250.
An image of a customer who, according to a note written on the verso of the color print, Augusta Rathbone met at City of Paris department store in San Francisco, California. Rathbone had built a reputation as a leading printmaker in the Bay Area by the time she made “Portrait of Frances Lloyd,” having been introduced to etching by Chicago printmaker Norah Hamilton just over a decade prior. She dedicated much of her time to the medium while living between Paris and her native San Francisco, and had been hired by the department store to create portraits of clientele. The same year this was created, she was given a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art.
Rathbone was known especially for her pared-down Modernist etchings of cityscapes and landscapes of the French Riviera, San Francisco, and the Sierra Nevada mountain range. However, her oeuvre included oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and more. She was active in various women artists groups and was a member of the California Society of Etchers and the San Francisco Art Association.
Augusta Rathbone (American: 1897 – 1990)
“Woman Praying - Brittany”
etching and color aquatint; ca. 1935; numbered ‘23’ from total edition of 38; 8-7/8 x 5-7/8” platemark; signed; on Arches wove. $400.
A Breton woman in traditional dress complete with a simple coiffe bigoudène, a small cap with thick ribbons that cover the ears and drape over the chignon at the back of the head, kneels for her prayers, a basket of washing beside her. The image is solemn, muted in tone and with very little detail to distract from the scene. The image pays homage to both the beauty of piety and the private spirituality of women, as seen in a culture that by the 1930s had not changed much in recent centuries. Here, the sensible, no-frills costume lent itself to both daily chores (such as laundry) and to preserving modesty.
Augusta Rathbone’s signature style is marked by an economy of line and a focus on color and tonality, whether focusing on one person or object, or in illustrating a sweeping landscape or cityscape.
Augusta Rathbone (American: 1897 – 1990)
Untitled (Self-portrait)
oil on board; ca. 1940; 17 x 14-1/8” image size; signed (initials). $4,500.
Augusta Rathbone portrays herself in oils, broad brushstrokes reminiscent of the Fauves and Impressionists, particularly Pierre Bonnard, whose work she studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris It was this very style that her mentor Norah Hamilton recognized as a good fit for the printmaking medium, a prophetic observation that led Rathbone to create her largest body of work using etching and aquatint.
In chartreuse and plums, Rathbone portrays herself in the fashionable colors of the time but without unnecessary frills, and giving herself a distinctly sober expression – belied slightly by the addition of wine-red lipstick.
Tereza
Costa Rego (Brazilian: 1929 - 2020)
“A Espera” – from the portfolio Dez Artistas de Pernambuco lithograph; 1987; 96/100; 8-11/16 x 14-7/8” image size; signed; on white Velin Salti wove. $200.
The Brazilian portfolio Dez Atistas de Pernambuco was published by the Pernambuco government in 1987. It was a means to highlight ten artists of the region, many of whom were established as major contributors to the Modern Brazilian Figurative movement Rego herself had become a well-recognized painter and printmaker whose first solo show took place at the age of twenty at the Museo do Estado Pernambuco.
Though little information on Rego’s career is readily available in the United States, partially due to her activities as a Communist and mid-century feminist, she is among the most important artists in modern Brazilian history. In addition to her work in fine art, she was also the director of the Olinda Regional Museum and the Museum of the State of Pernambuco. Her exhibitions took her to Paris, Lisbon, Cuba, and elsewhere.
Here, she shows with surreal humor a nude from the back, facing a window that looks out onto a wintery forest. Startlingly, the looming faces of a girl and two cats peer inward; the girl wears a grin. The unusual perspective makes it seem as though we are observing the inside of a racy diorama, tittered at by a secretive young witness.
Gloria Roybal (American: born 1949)
“Sweet No. Two”
acrylic on paper, 1983; 9 x 11-1/4” image size; signed; on cream wove. $400.
Little is found on the life and career of Gloria “Lor” Roybal, also known as Lor Kotan (sometimes Roybal-Kotan), though she is still active in her native New Mexico, living in the mountains near Santa Fe. Her imagery borrows from the colors of the wilderness of the Santa Fe National Forest in which she was raised, yet her subject matter nearly always features imagined people or animals to whom she privately assigns names and stories of their own.
Roybal continues to work and exhibit in Santa Fe but also to maintain strict privacy. Though she has studied art history on her own time and finds kinship in the works of such artists as Chagall and Cezanne, and though her work is often labeled Modernist, she herself doesn’t subscribe to any label, considering the process of creation to be a spiritual journey rather than an academic one.
Evelyn Mitchell Solomon (American: 1924 - 2016)
“Cherchez la Femme (Look for the woman)” color woodcut with additional hand-applied color; ca. 1960; 22-1/2 x 13-3/16” image size; signed; on cream laid. Pencil annotated “only impression.” $350.
“Cherchez la femme” translates to “look for the woman,” a phrase coined by Alexander Dumas in his novel Les Mohicans de Paris, which has since become a cliché used in novels, films, and plays. By his reckoning, Dumas suggests that when a murder has been committed, the detective need only find the victim’s closest female acquaintance to identify the murderer
Used in this case by a woman artist, the phrase has been turned on its head, suggesting instead that woman is the source of truth, and to find her is to know that truth
Evelyn Mitchell Solomon was known for her nonrepresentational works and abstracted images of the natural world, rendered in oils, acrylics, collage, and drawings of all mediums, in addition to woodcuts.
Elisabeth Sunday (American: born 1958)
“Young Woloff Girl, Senegal” photograph; 1986; 22/35; 5-9/16 x 4-9/16” image size; signed; semigloss photopaper. $500.
At age fifteen, Elisabeth Sunday was given her first camera by her grandfather, Cleveland School painter Paul B. Travis. She took photography courses at Humboldt State University (now California State Polytechnic, Humboldt) before moving to Paris in 1980 to open her own portraiture studio and further her studies in experimental photography.
By 1986 she had developed a technique she called “field mirror photography,” in which she used a mirrored contraption of her own design to capture her subjects, shooting the warped reflection with a large format camera. Beginning in 1986, she traveled to parts of Central, West, and South Africa, living for several months among one indigenous tribe at a time and photographing people in their chosen environs.
Sunday’s work, as both a woman and of African American descent, pushes back against the popular narrative of the colonial gaze; the figures are stretched to monumental proportions, removed from Western ideals, and given an expression of beauty all their own.
Elisabeth Telling (American: 1882 - 1979)
“Patty Stringing Beads”
drypoint; 1927; unnumbered, from edition of 200; 6-3/4 x 5-15/16” platemark; signed; on ivory laid. Published by the California Society of Printmakers; ex-collection Grace Nicolson. $250.
Printmaker and painter Elisabeth Telling was an internationally recognized portrait etcher, known equally for personal commissions by individuals and by her work for the Field Museum of Chicago, creating portraits of indigenous people in Ecuador, Peru, and Guatemala. She worked as an independent professional artist at a time when it was rare for a woman to do so, receiving her first commission after participating in an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1922. Well-traveled, Telling was a member of the Society of Woman Geographers, with whom she remained until the age of ninety-four
“Patty Stringing Beads” is one of Telling’s most well recognized works, exemplifying her deft ability to capture a visage in a singular moment. An impression of this work is held in the Smithsonian American Arts Museum
Joyce Wahl Treiman (American: 1922 - 1991)
Untitled (nude with bird)
lithograph; ca. 1970; artist’s proof; 14-1/4 x 12” image size; signed; on cream Rives wove. $1,200.
Joyce Wahl Treiman was a Figurative artist at a time when nonrepresentational Abstract Expressionism was the style of the time – though she was known for her penchant for doing the opposite of what was popular She called Figurative the “lonely arena” and, indeed, much of her work explored themes of isolation, though not always in the negative sense.
Treiman was drawn to the works of the French Impressionists and early Expressionists, whose styles she would intentionally imitate when portraying contemporary subjects and settings. In this untitled lithograph, Treiman depicts a nude woman lying on the floor of an interior, head toward the viewer and legs pointed away. The viewer is kept from a feeling of voyeurism by Treiman’s frank, almost careless linework, somehow still balanced and elegant, and by the coffee table alit upon by a bird in the foreground, pulling the composition into a strangely warped perspective.
Nura Woodson Ulreich (American: 1889 - 1950)
“An Interesting Story”; or: “Is Anybody Home?” lithograph; 1928; not editioned; 10-3/4 x 8-5/8” image size; signed; on cream BFK Rives. $350.
Nura Woodson Ulreich enjoyed a brief but successful career as a painter, illustrator, and decorative designer, but her star faded upon her untimely death. Ulreich was particularly noted for her drawings of children in scenes of a surreal, melancholic air, making her work as much Magic Realism as illustrative. Though often dismissed by art critics of the time as being decorative rather than serious, Ulreich’s work could today stand comparison to Frida Kahlo, Marc Chagall, and others who found artistic merit in the connection between unfettered imagination, spirituality, and the human condition.
Ulreich said of her subject matter: “Childhood is a state of being. Children express it. They do not possess it. It is intact when they enter it and intact when they leave it. It is not confined to flesh and blood children. Whatever invokes within us gentleness, tenderness, or a desire to both laugh and cry is surely imbued with the Childhood Spirit. The little figures in my works are offered merely as symbols of the universally beloved state being called childhood.”
Images and text copyright 2024 The Annex Galleries
