In light of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States, Women to Watch: Celebrating the Centennial of Women’s Suffrage presents works from Cheekwood’s works on paper collection by female artists. With objects by Ruth Chaney, Helen Frankenthaler, Laura Grosch, Lee Krasner, Clare Leighton, Liliane Lijn, Barbara Morgan, and Beverly Pepper, the exhibition allows the viewer to recognize the strength in the points of view of the female artist, seeing where those voices resonate, and their impact on the canon of art history. Many of the artists in the show were often viewed as secondary to their more famous male counterparts, whether that was their husbands, or their contemporaries. This show allows the work to be seen on its own, without that relational identity. The artists in this show, much like the suffragists, were fighting to have their voices be heard. This exhibition invites the viewer to consider and embrace a different focus within art’s history, to see the unseen and value the undervalued.
Clare Leighton (American, b. England, 1898-1989). Firewood in Georgia, 1936. Wood engraving on paper. Anonymous gift. 1982.6.11.
