On View
Not on viewObject number1960/1.27
Portrait of a Farmer's Wife
Artist
Robert Gwathmey
(American, 1903-1988)
Date1954
Mediumscreenprint
Dimensionsmat: 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm)
sheet: 22 1/4 × 17 1/2 in. (56.5 × 44.5 cm)
image: 17 in. × 13 1/4 in. (43.2 × 33.7 cm)
sheet: 22 1/4 × 17 1/2 in. (56.5 × 44.5 cm)
image: 17 in. × 13 1/4 in. (43.2 × 33.7 cm)
Credit LineDirector's Fund
Exhibition History"Highlights from the Permanent Collection: Prints and Drawings," KIA Long Gallery (Sept. 15 - Nov. 25, 2001).
"Second Sight/Insight," KIA Long Gallery (Dec. 11, 2004 - Mar. 6, 2005).
"Passion on Paper: Masterly Prints from the KIA Collection," March 17 - July 15, 2018, Groos Gallery.
"American Realism: Visions of America 1900-1950," Muskegon Museum of Art (May 11 - August 27, 2023); Flint Institute of Arts (September 9 - December 30, 2023); KIA (January 21 - April 14, 2024).Label TextThis screenprint is an adaptation of the artist’s oil painting of
the same title created a few years earlier. While fulfilling an
artist’s grant, Robert Gwathmey met this woman in 1944
when he lived among North Carolina tobacco workers.
Gwathmey was active in the Civil Rights and anti-war
movements and his works demonstrate his empathy for the
plight of marginalized and underrepresented communities.
He wrote, “Farmer’s Wife is my response to a lady of character
who has borne the scars of outrageous circumstances and
has refused to be destroyed…It was my hope that…I might
have been able to extend the dignity and beauty of this
lady…”
Gwathmey was a pioneer in the art of screenprint. He was
among a small number of its first proponents in New York
in the 1930s. In 1945, he authored a “how-to” article about
the printmaking process for American Artist magazine. His
mastery of techniques can be appreciated in his ability to
present a complexity of patterns and shapes unified by lines
of varying thickness. Farmer’s Wife is one of Gwathmey’s early
masterworks in screenprinting. ["American Realism" Exhibition Label, 2023]
