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Lady with a Quilt
On View
On view
Object number1977/8.102

Lady with a Quilt

Artist (American, 1907-1987)
Date1951
Mediumoil on canvas board
Dimensionsframe: 30 × 26 3/4 in. (76.2 × 67.9 cm)
canvas: 32 1/4 × 24 1/4 in. (81.9 × 61.6 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Oscar Renshaw
Exhibition History"Kalamazoo Painters of the 30's, 40's, and 50's," KIA (Mar. 8 - Apr. 8, 1984). "Art, Music & Feminism in the 1950s," KIA Galleries 3 & 4 (January 21 - May 7, 2023). "Legendary Voices: Art for the Next Century," KIA (September 7 - February 18, 2025)Label TextKathryn Hodgman is remembered in the Kalamazoo community for both her artwork and her civic-minded initiatives. She was an energizing influence on art in Kalamazoo from the day she arrived in 1930, fresh from her studies at Wellesley College, to create an art department at Kalamazoo College. She served there as the department head from 1930 to 1939. Hodgman persuaded nationally known artists with whom she was personally acquainted to come to Kalamazoo for lectures and painting workshops, which helped establish the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts as an important art hub in the Midwest. While Hodgman never achieved national renown, during the 1930s, ʼ40s, and ʼ50s her artwork was featured in both group and one-person exhibits in Michigan, New York, and elsewhere in the United States. Lady with a Quilt is a portrait of Iris Praus, a polyglot, a lover of fashion and antiques, and a former secretary for the A. M. Todd Company in Kalamazoo. The painting not only honors “women’s work” but also exemplifies Hodgman’s colorful, vigorous, and expressive brushwork. [Label for "Art, Music & Feminism in the 1950s”, 2023]