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Amile-Ursule Guillebaud
Amile-Ursule Guillebaud. Swiss (1800–after 1880). Portrait of the Artist, Seated at Her Easel. c. 1820–1845. Oil on canvas. Purchased with a gift from Peter Soriano and Nina Munk, class of 1988, and the Museums Acquisitions Fund.
SCMA recently acquired a painting at auction, thanks in large part to the generosity of Peter Soriano and Nina Munk, class of 1988. The painting was one of five that formed part of the "Female Triumphant: Women Artists of the Premodern Era" sale at Sotheby's in New York (January 31, 2019). Amile-Ursule Guillebaud was a Swiss artist active in Geneva between 1820 and 1845. She mainly painted portraits but she is also known to have painted genre scenes and at least one history painting.
Little is known about Guillebaud, who was characterized in theDictionary of Swiss Artists (1902) as a "sentimental" artist. She may have descended from a family of artists and is believed to have studied with painter Joseph Hornung (1792–1870). She may have also benefitted from Geneva's Académie des Dames, where women could draw from plaster casts and from live female models. Unlike most other academies in Europe at the time, Geneva was rather unique in offering this opportunity to women artists. It is worth noting that Guillebaud may have been aware of the famed French painter, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, who was in Switzerland in 1807 and 1808. At least four of Vigée Le Brun's paintings have remained in Swiss collections, two of which are in Geneva.
Guillebaud's painting is almost certainly a self-portrait. What at first appears to be a rather simple painting is more complex upon closer examination. The painting leaves the viewer wondering whether the object of the artist's gaze is a mirror, from which she paints her portrait, or a painting she is copying. Her composition is carefully constructed, with a strong vertical line dividing the canvas in half. Guillebaud's skillful brushwork articulates various textures and her use of light and color is extremely accomplished.
SCMA is the first US institution to currently house a work by this artist. The painting is a welcome addition to the already deep holdings of 19th-century art at SCMA. It joins other works by Swiss artists, and is the result of an increased effort by the museum to acquire more works by women artists. As a still unknown artist, Guillebaud's painting offers a wonderful opportunity for new research and fresh insights into this time and place of artistic production. The painting is currently on display on the third floor.
Lesley Dill
Lesley Dill. American, born 1950. A Word Made Flesh (Throat), 1994.
In late 2017, Brooklyn-based artist Lesley Dill (born 1950) donated 54 prints to the Smith College Museum of Art, making SCMA the repository of record for her extensive body of work in multiples. With this important gift, SCMA now owns an impression of all of Dill's prints, and the artist has pledged to donate new works as they are published. The first print donated under this agreement was realized with the December 2017 gift of Dill's latest print, Hesterby the Detroit-based publisher, Signal Editions, and Wing, published by the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, was added to the collection in early 2018.
Dill's evocative works center on the relationship between language, spirituality, and the human body. She came to the practice of art late in her late twenties, although earlier life experiences contributed significantly to the form of her visual expression. Key among these was a mystical experience in her teens when she became conscious of the underlying connection between all things in a very visual and tangible way. According to Dill: "I felt this sense of hugeness, a sense that there was a pattern all over everything and it was all right. And this realization was accompanied by a feeling of bliss, which I had never experienced before."
Dill studied English at Trinity College, Hartford, graduating with a B.A in 1974. She received a Masters in Education from Smith College the following year. An early experience teaching art at a high school in her native Maine solidified her connection between words, imagery, and lived experience, so she pursued the study of art, graduating with an M.F.A from the Maryland Institute of Art in 1980.
Dill began making prints in the early 1990s, shortly after she received a book of Emily Dickinson's poetry as a gift from her mother. Although she had not previously been drawn to poetry, Dickinson's words struck a chord: the poet's short evocative phrasing recalled Dill's formative mystical experiences and became a rich resource of artistic inspiration. She also became entranced with the material properties of paper, which she explored further during almost two years living in India. As Dill understood very little Hindi, she experienced language as a tangible visible entity, and was also inspired by the aesthetics of life in India—the colors, fabrics, and use of henna for body decoration. These influences would coalesce in the regular production of prints and multiples that combined a wide variety of print media printed on different weights and textures of paper incorporation three-dimensional elements and fragments of poetry. Dill has continued to stretch the boundaries of print media, as well as creating sculptural editions, such as Poem Hands, that include metal, wire, and thread as well as paper.
This gift joins nine works by Lesley Dill already in the SCMA collection, including prints, photography, and sculpture. Works on paper are available for viewing by appointment in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.
Alma Thomas
Alma Thomas, American, 1891–1978. Morning in the Bowl of Night, 1973. Acrylic on canvas. Purchased with the Hillyer-Mather-Tryon Fund, the Madeleine H. Russell, class of 1937, Fund, the Kathleen Compton Sherrerd, class of 1954, Acquisition Fund for American Art and the Dorothy C. Miller, class of 1925, Fund. Image courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY.
The Smith College Museum of Art has acquired Morning in the Bowl of Night, 1973, a painting by the historically significant American artist and teacher Alma Thomas (1891–1978), who lived and worked mainly in Washington, D.C. and was active in the art movement known as the Washington Color School.
Using bright, primary colors and geometric royal blue shapes that cover the surface of the painting from edge to edge, Morning in the Bowl of Night at once embodies and departs from what in the 1960s became Thomas's characteristic, bold approach to abstraction. The title of the painting is taken from the first verse of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by the Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) (as translated by Edward FitzGerald; published 1859).
Thomas's career and body of work are emblematic of how artists embraced abstraction during the political and social transformations of the mid-20th century, including the civil rights and feminist movements in the U.S. and anti-colonial and independence movements around the world. Abstraction provided Thomas and her peers with a broadly resonant visual language, offering a way to be taken seriously as artists regardless of gender, ethnicity or geography — groupings that traditionally marginalized them within modern art's predominantly white, male and Euro-American inner circle.
The Collections of Feminist Artists Nina Yankowitz and Joyce Kozloff
Ree Morton. American, 1936–1977. Flag for Nina from the installation Flagship, 1975. Acrylic and embroidery on nylon. The Nina Yankowitz Collection of Women's Art 1970s Onward.
Petah Coyne. American, born 1953. Untitled #1428, 2015-2016. Specially formulated wax, pigment, and silk flower. Gift of Joyce Kozloff.
Collection News_SCMA Will Steward the Collections of Nina Yankowitz and Joyce Kozloff (pdf)
The Smith College Museum of Art (SCMA) will steward the personal art collections of Nina Yankowitz and Joyce Kozloff, Feminist artists and longtime friends. These two distinctive collections focus on diverse works of art made by women artists from the 1960s to the present day. Yankowitz donated 74 works of art to SCMA in 2016; Kozloff's gift of 190 works arrived at the museum in February 2018. Both Yankowitz and Kozloff are based in New York City.
Nina Yankowitz (born Newark, New Jersey, 1946) is known for her work in new media technology, site specific public installations and signature 1960's "Draped paintings" exhibited in New York and elsewhere. Yankowitz's 1970's Canvas Thread Reading painting was included in the first Whitney Biennial (1973). Her new media installations have blurred boundaries and interrogated both physical and virtual spaces. Like many artists, her collection evolved naturally. According to Yankowitz: "Most of the artworks I collected were of friends and those I respected in the community. I often purchased works at art auctions or benefits, and sometimes from an art gallery, although the Ree Morton Flag piece she made about me was included in her sailboat installation at N.Y. Harbor and years later I added it to my collection."
Joyce Kozloff (born Somerville, New Jersey, 1942) was a major figure in both the Pattern and Decoration and the Feminist art movements of the 1970s, and has continued her activist art practice since that time. In 1979, she began to focus on public art, increasing the scale of her installations and expanding the accessibility of her art to reach a wider audience. Since the early 1990s, Kozloff has utilized mapping as a device for consolidating her enduring interests in history, culture, and the decorative and popular arts. Speaking of her collection, Kozloff stated: "Like most artists, I own work by friends, mostly women… In recent years, I began to realize that altogether, these artworks represent a community at a certain moment in time. We were the first generation of American feminist artists, and as that period recedes, there is increased interest in our politics, collectives, dialogues and art."
Friends since the early 1970s, Kozloff and Yankowitz developed their collections separately. Yankowitz says "Our choice to donate to Smith came from merging goals to provide both museum exposure and astute educational investigations that spark inspirational inquiry for current and future generations to mine at Smith. I also hope our initiative inspires others to donate their personal art collections to Smith." For both artists, these collections are very personal. According to Kozloff: "I have lived with these pieces, eaten on them, filled them with flowers, referred to them for information, and arranged them on my walls. They are my friends. It is sad to let them go, but the museum can take better care than I ever could, and they will be seen by a broad public. Wouldn't it be wonderful if other women artists donated their collections to [SCMA] and it became known as a center for this new kind of very personal collecting?"
These two collections strengthen SCMA's ability to offer a deep and nuanced history of American feminist art, substantively supporting research into the work and lives of creative women in the latter part of the 20 the century. These important gifts also provide a springboard for SCMA to collect the work of artists who identify feminism as integral to their creative practice.
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn. Dutch, 1606–1669. The Three Crosses, Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves, ca. 1660. Drypoint and burin printed in black, third state of five. Gift of Mary Gordon Roberts, class of 1960, in honor of the 55th reunion of her class.
Rembrandt Press Release (pdf)
The Smith College Museum of Art is pleased to announce that it has received a transformative gift from Mary Gordon Roberts (Smith class of 1960) of two impressions of one of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn's most famous prints, The Three Crosses, Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves.
Rembrandt intensively worked and reworked the composition of The Three Crosses, experimenting with different types of paper, vellum and inking variations. Four versions, or "states," of The Three Crosses were produced during Rembrandt's lifespan, with a fifth state printed after the artist's death.
It was not until the third state that Rembrandt considered his print formally completed as his signature affirms. Solely created in drypoint, a print technique which allows for only a limited number of impressions, Rembrandt did something very bold; instead of destroying his copper plate after it started to wear down, he decided to rework the composition completely by adding and erasing figures in the scene. The most evident compositional changes are found between the third and fourth states.
There are only twenty-two documented impressions of the third state of The Three Crosses. Compositionally, the third state seems to reflect the moment before darkness ensues; a bright light is cast on Christ and his mourners as well as on the penitent thief. By way of contrast, the impenitent thief's face recedes in darkness.
The fifth and last state, which compositionally is the same as the fourth, is also uncommon, and its history is somewhat mysterious. After Rembrandt's death his copper etching plates were sold to various printmakers and art dealers in Amsterdam. Apparently, the plate for The Three Crosses was acquired by the obscure printmaker Frans Carelse, who re-printed impressions after adding his own name to the plate.
Yto Barrada
Yto Barrada, Playground, 2010, three-channel video installation, digitized 16mm film, color, mute, 21 min., dimensions variable, edition 1 of 5 (artwork © Yto Barrada, image provided by Yto Barrada) Purchased with funds from the Contemporary Associates. SC 2018:7.
Abstract and poetic, Playground expands on Yto Barrada's work in photography, sculpture, and film, including her most iconic work, The Strait Project: A Life Full of Holes (1998–2004). Barrada is an artist deeply concerned with the enormous ecological, structural, and social transformations that her hometown, Tangier, has experienced since King Mohammed VI took the Moroccan throne in 1999. Playground brings to life the city's changing landscape and the many people, animals, and plants who call Morocco's northernmost city home. Like much of Barrada's work, Playground also reflects on how Tangier and its inhabitants have appeared on screen and in print since the 19th century. In a nod to Tangier's popularity with filmmakers both Moroccan and foreign, Barrada shot Playground on 16mm film. Yet, while the work retains much of film's visual texture, its depiction of everyday labor and leisure show a Tangier far different from the city mythologized by nationalist, colonialist, and Orientalist visual culture.
Yto Barrada was born in Paris, France, in 1971, after her parents left Morocco during the Years of Lead (1961–99) because of their political activities. Barrada lives and works in New York, NY, and Tangier, where she grew up and where, in 2006, she founded the Cinémathèque de Tanger. Her past awards include the 2011 Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year and the 2015 Abraaj Group Art Prize. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Centre Georges Pompidou, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo Internacional.
Hương Ngô
Hương Ngô, The Voice is an Archive, 2016, single-channel digital video, black-and-white, sound, 6 min., dimensions variable, edition 1 of 5 (artwork © Hương Ngô, image provided by Hương Ngô) Purchased with funds from the Contemporary Associates. SC 2018:5
The Voice is an Archive is emblematic of Hương Ngô's interest in archives, feminist history, and the places where the personal and the political intersect. In the six-minute-long documentation of a performance by Ngô, her sister, and her niece, the two women and girl appear with white earbuds, as if on a video call. At moments laughing and, at others, quietly tearing up, each tries to sing along in Vietnamese to a recording of Ngô's mother. The video reflects on how individual bodies transmit language and culture across generations and it tells a story of the familial bonds and archival materials that survive forced migration.
Hương Ngô lives and works in Chicago. She was born in 1979 in Hong Kong, where her family took refuge after the Vietnam War before emigrating to the U.S. Ngô is a former fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program (2012) and Fulbright Scholar (2016), as well as a 2018 fellow at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France. Her work is in the collection of the DePaul Art Museum, the MCA Chicago Rare Book Collection, and the Asia Art Libraries at MoMA, New York.
Alexis Esquivel
Alexis Esquivel. Born Cuba, 1968; lives and works in Spain. Beijing World Park. 2014. Acrylic on linen. Purchased. SC 2015:19
This painting will be on view in Targan Gallery on the lower level of the museum from August 2016 through the academic year (May 2016).
Esquivel adopts the compositional format of Bosch's central panel (see below), inserting elements from the left panel (paradise) and the right panel (hell). From Beijing World Park, he inserts, in and around the central pond, miniaturized versions of the pyramids at Giza, the Roman Colosseum, a cluster of famous buildings in Manhattan, and Australia's Sydney Opera House.
The scene is presided over by a large, centrally placed blue "Lucky Cat," a common Japanese figure of good luck, often displayed as small ceramic figures in Japanese and Chinese businesses and restaurants. This replaces the central blue-spired sphere of the Bosch painting, on which nude figures cavort.
Hieronymus Bosch. Netherlandish, c. 1450–1516. The Garden of Earthly Delights, c. 1490–1510. Oak panel triptych. Prado Museum, Madrid. (Image:konangalfilmsociety.blogspot.com)
Interspersed with Bosch's nude figures are contemporary figures, from tourists taking pictures to world leaders, including Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, gesturing and dressed in black at lower left. Above her Kim Jong-Un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, strides forward.
At the right of the canvas, near Esquivel's quotation of Bosch's bird-creature eating and defecating humans from his potty chair, is Fidel Castro in a red-checked shirt and straw hat "gardening" in a publicity photo shoot from 2012.
Scholars have long debated the meaning of Bosch's apocryphal vision from late medieval Europe. Here Esquivel conflates the triptych with an Asian contemporary theme park, further complicating the reading of both pictures, old and new. His inclusion of a mushroom cloud on the horizon may suggest that the world still remains poised between heaven and hell.
Owusu-Ankomah. Born Ghana, 1956; lives and works in Germany. Microcron 6b. 2013. Acrylic on canvas. Purchased. SC 2015:56
This painting is on view in Targan gallery on the lower level of the museum from mid-August 2016 through the academic year (May 2017)
In his work, the Ghanaian-born artist Owusu-Ankomah incorporates traditional ideographs from the Adinkra symbol system of the Akan people of Ghana. Adinkra signs and symbols have literal, symbolic, and proverbial meanings, which have been traditionally used in textile design. Owusu-Ankomah combines them with Chinese and other ideograms, as well as contemporary brand icons to create his own visual language. The symbols are used in a strongly contrasting, graphic palette of black and white, with muscular male figures in outline moving powerfully through the compositional field.
Microcron, the title of this and other works, was coined by the artist. It represents the ultimate symbol—the symbol of symbols—and refers to a system of all-encompassing order and philosophy. As the artist states, "The artist becomes a social critic, a future analyst, a priest, a philosopher, a prophet, a mystic, a healer and a teacher….My paintings are an indicator, roadsigns on our journey towards our oncoming evolution."
Chien-Chi Chang. Born Taiwan, 1961. China Town. 1992–2011. Single-channel video. Running time: 19 minutes, 23 seconds. Purchased. SC 2015:24
ON VIEW: NEW MEDIA GALLERY, LOWER LEVEL: 11/13/15 through 12/13/2015
Chien-Chi Chang is a photographer and video artist whose work deals with alienation and connection, from North Koreans who have fled their country to Vietnamese brides married to men in Taiwan. He first became interested in themes related to the dispersion of Chinese individuals and families from their homeland in 1992. Since that time he has followed the lives of eighteen families and the husbands and fathers who left China for New York City's Chinatown, where they labored as undocumented workers to earn money to send home.
Working long hours and living in groups in cramped quarters, the men in the video are shot in black and white, while their wives and family members in China are shot in color. During the two decades of the project (which includes photographs), a number of the men have earned enough to rejoin their families. The artist himself is an immigrant, who left Taiwan to study at Indiana University and now lives and works in Graz, Austria.
A Beggar Woman—Cairo. 2000–2001. Single-channel video. Duration: 8 minutes, 52 seconds. Purchased with the gift of Jungkoo An and Ae Young Han, in honor of their daughter, Sabina An, class of 2016; an anonymous gift; and funds from the Contemporary Associates. SC 2014:56
The whole process of my practice has always been a journey of searching for a self-awareness.—Kimsooja
Kimsooja is a major, multi-media artist working transnationally. Born in Daegu, South Korea, and trained as a painter, Kimsooja began to work with traditional Korean materials and fabrics, which she incorporated in installations and performances as two-dimensional tableaux or as sculpture in colorful bundles calledbottari. As a further development of her practice, Kimsooja used her body to become the "needle" in interventions on the streets of major metropolises around the world. These public spaces became her "canvas" as crowds flowed around her silent, motionless form, the still point in a series of "Needlewoman" performances recorded in video.
A Beggar Woman—Cairo is one of three videos in the Beggar Woman series of 2000–2001, including performances on the streets of Mexico City and Lagos. Kimsooja relates that the inspiration for the Beggar Woman performances was an elderly woman begging on the streets of Mexico City. She was "struck by her posture," her tiny, unmoving form, and the way in which "she was totally wrapped with[in] herself." In lowering herself to a seated position and extending her hand, the artist recalls feeling exceptionally vulnerable, as if she were actually begging.
The Cairo performance opens with a tightly packed crowd composed mostly of men, as women walk by. The crowd is parted by a man in a maroon sweater and khaki pants, revealing the artist sitting in a fixed pose on the pavement with her hand outstretched. The perimeter of male observers is drawn closely around her, shoulder to shoulder, creating an intensely claustrophobic and unsettling effect. One man finally steps forward and places his cupped hand under hers, lifting her hand very slightly; he then turns and walks away.
This video is the inaugural work shown in the Museum's New Media Gallery on the lower level.
Anita Steckel
Anita Steckel. American, 1930–2012. Giant Woman (Empire State). 1974. Photomontage with graphite. Purchased with the Dorothy C. Miller, class of 1925, Fund. ©2015 The Estate of Anita Steckel
On view as part of Women's Work: Feminist Art from the Collection: September 11, 2015 – January 3, 2016
Anita Steckel began to make sexually explicit photo-based works in the early 1960s. The genesis of the works that she later renamed the Giant Woman series was two small color photo-collages depicting nude females in urban New York scenes. When these works were lost after being sent to an international exhibition in 1968, Steckel made large black and white photographic prints from slides of the originals. Steckel liked the scale and monochromatic nature of the resulting work.
In Giant Woman (Empire State), a nude woman rides the famous monument. Originally, this figure had a generic face as seen in this study. Scholar Rachel Middleman believes that Steckel's insertion of her face into this and other works in the series is "a representation of her changing feminist consciousness in the early 70s." Another telling detail is the insertion of a paintbrush in the figure's right hand in the 1974 version of the piece, which signals Steckel's belief that artistic expression can serve as an active form of empowerment for women.
(Image courtesy the Estate of Anita Steckel and Suzanne Geiss Company, NYC)
Lockwood de Forest
Lockwood de Forest. American, 1850–1932. Ramesseum at Thebes. c. 1876–79. Oil on canvas. Purchased with the Hillyer-Mather-Tryon Fund.
**Currently on view on the third floor of the Museum.**
Lockwood de Forest was an American painter and businessman, a partner with Louis Comfort Tiffany in an interior design venture and later an importer of decorative carved Indian furniture. De Forest was widely traveled in this country and abroad, including Europe, Egypt and the Middle East, India, and East Asia. His formal study as an artist was brief, but he benefited from the tutelage of Frederic Edwin Church and was a frequent visitor to Olana, Church's home and studio.
The Ramesseum at Thebes depicts the hypostyle of the mortuary temple of Ramesses II (13th century bce) and shows, in the background, the pharaoh's fallen colossus. De Forest visited the Ramesseum as part of his trip on the Nile from Cairo to points south in 1875–76. On his party's return north to Luxor and Karnak, he crossed the river to western Thebes, where he studied the Ramesseum on February 2 and 4, 1876. After the artist returned to the United States, this painting was among a number of works he created in his studio, using oil sketches and drawings from his travels, and in this case, a tourist photograph from the studio of French photographer Henri Béchard.
De Forest's canvas was one of three Orientalist paintings purchased by Smith College President L. Clark Seelye in July 1879. All three were subsequently deaccessioned and sold, but the rediscovery of the Ramesseum at Thebes by Alice Pratt Brown Professor John Davis in a New York gallery exhibition in 2015 allowed the Museum to recover one of its foundational works of American art.
Ramesseum at Thebes will remain on view for a year (through July 2016) on the third floor of the Museum in a changing installation of related works to place it in historical and aesthetic context. The installation was co-curated by Diana Wolfe Larkin, an independent art historian specializing in ancient Egyptian art, and Alex Dika Seggerman, Five College Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Islamic Art.
Seydou Keita
Seydou Keita. Malian, 1921–2001. A Malian Woman, 1949–52. Vintage silver print with applied color. 11 ½ x 9 inches. Purchased.
** Currently not on view but available to view by appointment in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.**
During the 1950s, Seydou Keita was one of the most successful portrait photographers in Mali. Catering to the growing middle class in the decade before Mali's independence from France, Keita captured both the faces and aspirations of middle-class Africans.
Keita was born in Bamako and lived there his entire life. He first worked as a carpenter with his uncle (who gave him his first camera), although he also experimented with photography. He set up his own studio in Bamako in 1948. He furthered his skills in the studio of Pierre Garnier, from who he purchased photo supplies.
Keita's portraits are distinguished by the presence of decorative, sometimes clashing patterns, a mixture of traditional and modern dress, and the prominent featuring of consumer goods that signal the sitter's prestige or modernity, such as bicycles, motorbikes, or radios. Because they were made for commercial purposes, many of Keita's photographs are undated. However, approximate dates can be estimated from the backdrops: this photograph, for example, features the textured fringed bedspread he used between 1949 and 1952.
Keita did not often make enlargements, such as this, as he did not have the necessary equipment in his studio. Enlargements and hand-coloring were only done at the request of the sitter. These hand-colored enlargements were often displayed in hand-painted frames done by the same artist who did the coloring. The self-possessed woman depicted in this photograph chose to have her jewelry, lips, headscarf and nails accented in gold and red.
When Mali gained independence in 1962, Keita became the official photographer for the government, and he closed his studio on 1963.
Lauren Greenfield
Lauren Greenfield. American, b.1966. Sheena tries on clothes with Amber, 15, in a department store dressing room, San Jose, California from Girl Culture, 1998. Dye destruction print. Gift of Susan and Peter MacGill. SC 2011:72-5. Photography by Petegorsky/Gipe. ©Lauren Greenfield
** Currently not on view but available to view by appointment in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.**
The documentary photographer and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield is known for her work around youth and popular culture. Her portfolio, Girl Culture, calls upon Greenfield's photo-journalistic background to document the daily life of teenage girls in a consumer-and-celebrity-obsessed culture. Juxtaposing photographs of teenagers getting ready for middle school parties in front of the mirror, playing sports, trying on clothes and eating lunch in school cafeterias with images of models, porn stars, exotic dancers and movie stars, Girl Culture is "my attempt to deconstruct the illusions that make up our reality," Greenfield wrote. As journalist and cultural anthropologist, Greenfield is skeptical of those illusions, but what makes Girl Culture so special is the way her personal affection for the rituals of girlhood suffuses the images and their accompanying text, derived from in-depth interviews with her subjects. Girl Culture is also a form of memoir, a reflection of Greenfield's own experiences growing up in Los Angeles as a child and teenager, and her own struggles with beauty and self-image.
In this photograph, Sheena, a fifteen year-old girl from San Jose, California, tries on clothes in a department store dressing room with her friend Amber. In her interview with Sheena, she tells Greenfield:
- Girls want to look pretty. They want to be sparkly, shiny. Stick out of the crowd. That's what I do. Attention is a part of your life. If you didn't get any attention, how would anyone recognize you? How would anybody know you? You need to have attention in order for people to know who you are or for people to see you.
While the interview captures Sheena's vibrant, confident spirit, the photograph catches the anxiety that flits across her heavily made-up face as she gazes at herself in the mirror, tightening her cropped purple mesh top with her hands to increase her cleavage. Sheena's expression registers worry, aspiration, discomfort and determination, complex and contradictory emotions that Greenfield photographs without judgment or condescension. The trust these girls put in her is evident by the fact that she could capture such an intimate moment – she's there in the changing room with them – and such naked emotions. It also implies a kind of kinship between photographer and subjects: Greenfield might have easily been the girl looking at herself in the mirror before she was the woman looking at others through the camera.
Randall Deihl
Randall Deihl. American, Born 1946. Belchertown State School. 1976. Oil on panel. Purchased in part with the gift of the Fred Bergfors Fund for works by living American artists. SC 2013:22
Randall Deihl. American, Born 1946. Woman with Pink Letter. 1978. Oil on panel. Purchased. SC 2014:10
The Museum recently acquired two early paintings by the internationally known painter Randall Deihl, who has lived locally for four decades of his career. Deihl is one of a group of Western Massachusetts artists—including Gregory Gillespie, Scott Prior, Frances Cohen Gillespie, and Jane Lund—who came to be known as the Northampton or Pioneer Valley Realists.
The artist was recently asked to comment on Belchertown State School and Woman with Pink Letter:
"Before moving to Northampton in the mid-70s, I lived and worked in New York City as an Op-Ed page illustrator for the New York Times. The experience developed more fully the socio-political consciousness which I'd already possessed as a member of the Vietnam generation (I had served a tour of duty in Vietnam with the U.S. Army in the 60s).
"I learned about The Belchertown State School via a 1971 newspaper article which exposed inhumane conditions and appalling treatment of residents at the institution. I painted Belchertown State School in the mid-70s as an artistic depiction of imaginary residents who are grimly imprisoned in the barren place while an imaginary neighbor sits carefree and unconcerned on the green lawns outside the window, as if she's spending a day at the beach.
"I painted Woman with Pink Letter in the same period. Northampton became one of the places where disenfranchised people in need of social services would roam or spend their days sitting. This woman was an actual person, who was quite shy and frequently found sitting on the steps of my apartment building, always clutching a pink letter. One day I told her I would like to do a portrait of her sitting on the steps.
"I have always had an interest in the human condition and in making paintings of things that many people overlook or would prefer not to notice. The job of the artist is first to be an observer and then to bring attention to what is observed by making art out of it."
—Randall Deihl, April 25, 2014
Leonard Baskin
Leonard Baskin. American, 1922–2000. Aeneas and Anchises, 1972. Lithograph printed in black on paper. Gift of Jennifer R. S. Grogan in memory of Cynthia Propper Seton, class of 1948. SC 2011:25-6. Copyright The Estate of Leonard Baskin
** Currently available to view by appointment in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.**
This lithograph by the sculptor, printmaker and book illustrator Leonard Baskin exemplifies the artist's fascination with narrative and myth. As a student at Yale, Baskin founded the Gehenna Press. The name came from Milton's Paradise Lost, the inspiration from William Blake's synthesis of visual art, poetry and bookmaking. Like Blake, Baskin interweaves Biblical, classical and personal mythology, and word and image, in his prints. His first printed book was a selection of his own poems, and, after moving to the Pioneer Valley to teach at Smith College, he began a decades-long collaboration with the English poet Ted Hughes. Overturning traditional notions of pictures illustrating text, Baskin and Hughes created works in conversation with each other, Hughes' poems responding to Baskin's woodcuts, and Baskin's woodcuts to Hughes' poems.
Aeneas and Anchises depicts a scene from Virgil's Aeneid. Aeneas is the Prince of Dardania, a territory neighboring Troy. When the city falls to the Greeks in the Trojan War, Aeneas escapes with his father, Anchises, and his wife and son. Anchises is old and lame, and Aeneas carries him from Troy on his shoulders, holding his young son with one hand and his gods in another. His wife follows behind, but she dies during the flight. Baskin foregrounds the relationship between father and son, though the cluster of small black figures at the bottom of the print evokes the broader narrative of destruction, flight and exile. (The dramatic shading of Aeneas' torso doubles as an abstracted vision of the burning city of Troy.)
John Chamberlain
John Chamberlain. American, 1927–1960. Homer, 1960. Painted tin and wood base, 16 x 13 ½ x 11 in. Purchased with funds from the bequest of Isabel Brown Wilson, class of 1953 (2013). Image, courtesy Gagosian Gallery, New York.
Press Release (pdf)
**Homer is on view in a special installation on the third floor along with prints from SCMA's collection by Robert Rauschenberg through January 12, 2014**
John Chamberlain's early sculpture Homer (1960) is a major recent acquisition made possible by the generous bequest of Isabel Brown Wilson (class of 1953). The sculpture, purchased from the Rauschenberg Foundation, was formerly in the personal collection of artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), who amassed an important collection of the work of three generations of American artists of the twentieth century, including visual and performing artists as well as choreographers.
Chamberlain's work is identified not only with Abstract Expressionism and Pop, but with Minimalism and sub-genres of the sixties, including "trash art." Homer marks a critical moment of transition in the artist's career and belongs to a series of brightly colored, small-scale sculptures from the late 1950s and 1960s. Constructed from crushed and folded metal domestic containers, it forecasts the work for which Chamberlain is best known: assemblages of bent and crushed car parts.
The artist's first sculptures resembled the monochromatic bent and welded metal constructions of David Smith. While at the Black Mountain College in the mid-1950s Chamberlain was influenced by poets Charles Olson and Robert Creeley and began to make word collages while still creating basically linear and planar sculptures. His "epiphany" came in 1957 during a visit to artist Larry Rivers' home in Southampton, New York. Pulling the front fenders from an old Ford, Chamberlain crushed and assembled them, then ran over the sculpture. The resulting work—titled Shortstop—was the first sculpture Chamberlain created from car parts, later to become his signature medium.
Chamberlain's Homer represents a bridge from Abstract Expressionist painting to Pop art and will find an immediate place in the Museum's collection as a link from SCMA's fine group of Abstract Expressionist paintings to works from the sixties. Chamberlain broke barriers by introducing color into sculpture. Homer's distinctly different facades have different color palettes: one side, with bright yellows, reds, and blues, forecasts Pop colors, while the more subdued palette and imprinted text and patterns of the opposite face recall Cubist collages.
Homer realizes Mrs. Wilson's intention to enable the Museum to acquire an important work of twentieth-century American art for the collection, reflecting her personal artistic taste as well as her commitment to supporting the academic interests of Smith faculty and students. Among her many volunteer and philanthropic activities, Mrs. Wilson served Smith College as a member of the Board of Trustees and the Museum's Visiting Committee. With her sister, the late Maconda Wilson, and cousin Louisa Stude Sarofim '58, she donated $14 million to Smith through the Brown Foundation in 1997. It remains one of the largest gifts in the College's history, supporting a major renovation of the Fine Arts Center in 2000.
Emil Bisttram
Emil Bisttram. American, 1895–1976. Moon Magic, c. 1942. Oil on canvas. Purchased with the Kathleen Compton Sherrerd, class of 1954, Acquisition Fund for American Art.
**Moon Magic is on view on the lower level of the Museum (July 16, 2013–January 31, 2014)**
Self-described as a "classic modernist," Emil James Bisttram is particularly known for his geometric abstract paintings and his images of New Mexico. Although initially a realist painter, after moving to Taos in the early 1930s he began working in both realist and abstract styles. According to Bisttram, his exposure to the Native American art of New Mexico "led him to abstraction." A deeply spiritual artist, he closely studied Kandinsky's geometric paintings and artistic philosophies, sharing his belief that abstract painting was a vehicle for transcending reality to reveal the spiritual. In 1938 he joined with other artists who shared this perspective to found the Transcendental Painting Group, one of the most significant artistic associations formed outside a major urban center to advocate for abstract and non-objective art.
Moon Magic dates to the height of the artist's career and is typical of the carefully composed, lively geometric images for which he became celebrated. Here, a purple sphere (possibly the moon of the title) anchors the lower left of the composition. Orbs and triangles float in a deep green space, and a pink object or personage (with its suggestion of a large "eye" and red "mouth") plies its way through the heavens. The subject of celestial spaces and planetary forces was a theme the artist returned to repeatedly in his abstract paintings. The title, Moon Magic, points to Bisttram's interest in occult philosophy. It also suggests his quest for metaphysical truth through the symbolic representation of the heavens as both a scientific and a spiritual realm. In addition to the oil painting, the Museum also purchased Bisttram's gouache study for Moon Magic.
Childe Hassam
Childe Hassam. American, 1859–1935. Headland at Appledore, 1907. Oil on cradled panel. 25 1/4 in x 30 in; 64.1 cm x 76.2 cm. Bequest of Priscilla Mason, class of 1935.
**This work is on view through February 9, 2014 as part of the Framework exhibition in the third floor alcove.**
Appledore, the largest of the Isles of Shoals off the Maine/New Hampshire coast, is featured in many of Childe Hassam's paintings. The artist was a summer visitor to the Isles for over two decades, spending the summer of 1886 on Appledore before departing to study in Paris for three years. He frequented Appledore House, the island's only hotel and home to a salon of artists, writers, and musicians presided over by the poet Celia Thaxter. Hassam painted Thaxter's ebulliently colorful flower gardens numerous times. Following her death in 1894, his subject became the coastline and rugged features of the landscape, such as the rocky outcropping shown in Headland at Appledore (also known as East Headland, Appledore, Isles of Shoals East). The composition is almost abstract, concentrating on the central mass of rock occupying most of the canvas, with directional brushstrokes creating a sense of texture and the movement of sea water. This painting joins four others by the artist in SCMA's collection, including White Island Light, Isles of Shoals, at Sundown, which shows the rocks of South Gorge, with the lighthouse on White Island in the distance. The Museum also owns nearly thirty prints by the artist.
Headland was bequeathed to SCMA by Priscilla Mason, class of 1935. It was formerly owned by her mother, to whom it was given by a relative as a wedding gift in 1909, two years after it was painted. Priscilla Mason dedicated most of her working life to the graduate program of the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C., which later became part of Johns Hopkins University. She was active as a philanthropist, establishing the Priscilla Mason Funds for Public Service at SAIS, and was an early supporter of Smith's Engineering program.
Smith student apprentices in the Museum's frame restoration program, headed by Chief Preparator Bill Myers, will create a stylistically appropriate frame for Headland at Appledore. The painting, with its new frame, will be featured in the annual Framework exhibition showcasing the students' projects in May 2013.
Sopheap Pich
Sopheap Pich. Born Cambodia, 1971. Seated Buddha—Abhaya Mudra, 2012 Bamboo, rattan, wire, plywood. Sculpture: 69 ½ x 70 x 35 ½ in.; 176.5 x 177.8 x 90.1 cm. Base: 31 x 87 x 45 in.; 78.7 x 220.9 x 114.3 cm. Purchased with the Dorothy C. Miller, class of 1925, Fund
**Seated Buddha—Abhaya Mudra is on view on the lower level gallery as part of the exhibition Collecting Art of Asia (February 1–May 26, 2013).**
Sopheap Pich, a 1995 graduate of the University of Massachusetts, is considered to be the foremost contemporary artist working today in Cambodia. Pich's signature medium is woven rattan, which he uses to create three-dimensional biomorphic and architectural sculptures. In 2004 he began experimenting with strips of rattan as an armature for a form he intended to collage with cigarette packages, but then decided to leave the sculpture uncovered as an open framework. This form, a pair of lungs, was titled Silence and was followed by other rattan sculptures based on bodily organs, as well as animal, architectural, and plantlike forms, including an enormous morning glory.
Pich created a large-scale seated Buddha for an exhibition in 2011 and half-figure Buddhas, with the head and a portion of the torso, leaving lengths of rattan curling underneath as if to suggest the rest of the body. SCMA's Seated Buddha—Abhaya Mudra is related to the full-length seated Buddha of 2011, which Pich transported to different sites and photographed, in one case among other stone Buddhas, in another case, to a sandy plain, where the sculpture was photographed tilting backwards as if falling. The Museum's figure holds its right hand raised in the abhaya mudra, a gesture of protection.
Born and raised in a Buddhist culture and family, Pich has said that Buddhist teaching correlates with his ideas about daily life and accords with his respect for nature. He says, however, that "My studio is my temple, and when I travel my sketchbook and my laptop are my portable temples." As one writer has noted, the artist's rattan figures of Buddha engage materiality and immateriality in a way that traditional stone sculptures do not and in that sense they play with Buddhist teachings that posit the invisible presence of Buddha.
Sekino Jun'ichiro
Sekino Jun'ichiro. Japanese, 1914–1988. Koshiro Onchi,1952. Woodblock printed in color on paper. Gift of Lucio and Joan Noto
**This work will be on view in Collecting Art of Asia, February 1–May 26, 2013.**
Sekino Jun'ichiro is an important figure in the development of modern printmaking in Japan. This print one of a significant gift of thirty-nine works by the artist recently donated to SCMA by Lucio and Joan Noto.
Artists like Sekino associated with sosaku-hanga,or the Creative Print Movement, sought to break with the tradition of ukiyo-eprints, in which the design of the print and its cutting and printing were done by different people.
Sekino began making prints as a child in Aomori, inspired by the artist Shiko Munakata, who was also from the same town. His first medium was etching, which he studied with Junzo Kon, and later opened an etching studio, where he taught the technique to other artists. The subject of this woodblock print, Koshiro Onchi (1891–1955) was an important figure in the early development of sosaku-hanga. He was particularly vital in developing a community and encouraging younger artists, as the creative print movement had little support in Japan before World War II. Onchi became a mentor for Sekino after the younger artist's move to Tokyo in late 1930s, and Sekino served as one of Onchi's assistants.
Both Sekino and Onchi adapted ukiyo-e techniques, using large areas of color without the black outlines commonly found in earlier prints. Their styles, however, were quite different. Sekino favored realist subjects, executed detailed preliminary sketches, and was painstaking in his preparation of his blocks. In this moving portrait of his friend and teacher, Sekino depicts Onchi with one of his own prints, which were often abstract compositions executed using experimental techniques.
Bamum (Bagam) peoples
Unknown artist. Bamum (Bagam) peoples, Royal Tobacco Pipe. 20th century. Wood and brass. Gift of Charles and Blanche Derby. SC 2012:52
**Currently available by appointment with the Collections Manager/Registrar**
The peoples of the Cameroon Grassfields (West Africa) developed a rich tradition in the visual arts that expressed the social and political hierarchy of the many chiefdoms and kingdoms of the region. The Fon, or king, held the highest rank, followed in importance by the title-holders, including women, of the royal lineages.
Prestige pipes made of brass, such as this one, were part of the regalia of Fons and title-holders. They were made on commission for a patron and were cared for, and carried after, their owners by retainers. They were also displayed as status objects on ceremonial occasions. Prestige pipes, as well as carved and beaded ancestor figures, thrones, masks, stools, caps, drinking horns, and other regalia, would have been kept in the royal treasury at the Fon's palace, located at the geographical center of the kingdom. These objects provided a record of the kingdom's past and affirmed a pattern of culture based on the Fon's preeminence.
This pipe bowl has its original wood stem with a richly carved abstract design (possibly depicting spiders). A small bird is perched on the side of the brass bowl, which would have held tobacco. The pipe ends in a wonderfully observed sculpture of the head of an elephant, whose trunk curls back under the bowl of the pipe. Fons are addressed as "elephants," and carved elephant tusks are displayed on leopard pelts in the presence of the Fon during chiefdom ceremonies. The elephant typically appears in only a few types of prestige art: pipes, stools, wood masks, and beaded cloth masks.
James Rosenquist
James Albert Rosenquist. American, born 1933. High Pool, 1964–66. Multicolor lithograph from 5 stones printed on Italian handmade paper. Gift of The Pokross Art Collection, donated in accordance with the wishes of Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934 by her children, Joan Pokross Curhan, class of 1959, William R. Pokross and David R. Pokross Jr. in loving memory of their parents, Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934 and David R. Pokross. SC 2012:1–18. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe.
** Currently not on view but available to view by appointment in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.**
Born in Grand Forks, North Dakota, James Rosenquist spent his childhood in Minnesota and Ohio before moving to New York in 1955 to pursue a career as an artist. Although he received a traditional training in the 1950s at the University of Minnesota and the Arts Student League in New York, his experience as a billboard painter was a more prominent influence on his artistic development. Rosenquist's most famous works appropriate the monumental scale, consumer culture imagery, and techniques of billboard painting. He takes recognizable visual ephemera, such as spaghetti, cars, or company logos and abstracts them through distortions of scale and compositional layering. Despite his classification as a Pop artist, which he denounces as "a handy term that has nothing to do with the art," Rosenquist is interested in abstraction and challenging modes of perception, both of which can be explicitly seen in his prints.
High Pool, one of Rosenquist's earliest prints, is a deviation from his repertoire of mass culture-inspired paintings and prints of the 1960s. Developed from a painting of two tondos, High Pool is the predecessor of a series of geometrically abstract lithographs which he produced in the 1970s. In his prints, Rosenquist challenges our perception of abstract forms through deceptively descriptive titles. While the title, High Pool, may evoke aquatic associations, the ethereal blue forms are also reminiscent of celestial bodies. Rosenquist's word-image play challenges the viewer by proposing ambiguous meaning which we may choose to accept or ignore.
High Pool is one of twenty-two objects donated to the Museum by the family of Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934, and David R. Pokross.
Elizabeth Murray
Elizabeth Murray. American, 1940–2007. Tree Head, 1983. Gouache and watercolor on four sheets of attached paper. Gift of The Pokross Art Collection, donated in accordance with the wishes of Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934 by her children, Joan Pokross Curhan, class of 1959, William R. Pokross and David R. Pokross Jr. in loving memory of their parents, Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934 and David R. Pokross. SC 2012:1-12. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe.
** Currently not on view but available to view by appointment in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.**
From the early 1970s until her death in 2007, Elizabeth Murray created drawings, paintings, and prints that merge the immediacy and materiality of abstraction with a calculated use of personal narrative and humor. Working beyond the confines of the conventional rectangle, she is known for her elaborate multi-panel paintings comprised of irregularly shaped and colorful canvases. These works seamlessly integrate her childhood love of comics and her artistic interest in the work of the 1950s Abstract Expressionists.
While her labor-intensive paintings required elaborate planning, drawing allowed Murray to work more intuitively and demonstrate the process-driven nature of her work. Negating the natural shape of the paper by tearing and overlapping multiple sheets, she allowed the drawn form, rather than the dimensions of the paper, to dictate the drawing's overall shape. This is evident in Tree Head, one of a series of tree drawings which Murray produced in the early 1980s as an exploration of the subject's perceptual and formal ambiguity, as suggested by the title. Here, four sheets of paper are painted, torn, and layered, yet the bulbous, yellow tree form unifies the fragmented composition and draws the eye to the paper's exposed edges. Murray allows the viewer to trace her process of rearranging the sheets as she builds layers of gestural marks, showcasing the raw physicality of her drawing.
Tree Head is one of twenty-two objects donated to the Museum by the family of Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934, and David R. Pokross.
African Luba peoples
Unknown artist. African, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Luba peoples. Stool (kitenta). 20th century, carved wood. Gift of Dar and Geri Reedy. SC 2012:34
**This work is on view (third floor) September 7–December 6, 2012.**
The "heartland" of the Luba peoples is located in the Upemba Depression, a bowl-shaped basin of land with many lakes and waterways in the southeastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly known as Zaire). For the Luba, art is intimately related to the political and religious authority of particular persons and groups. Their figurative sculptures, such as this chief's stool, express the intimate relationship of physical beauty and spiritual power.
The most important emblem of office of a Luba ruler, chief, or diviner is the caryatid stool (kitenta, "seat" or "seat of power"). In light of the political structure of Luba society with its traditions of kingship and multiple chieftaincies, the kitenta reveals the artistry of Luba carvers as they sought to express the nature of Luba political and religious authority. Although such authority is associated with roles that men play, the central form of the stool is a female figure, which embodies the authority of the one who sits upon the stool. The kitenta, however, is rarely used as a seat. More often it is brought into the public domain on the occasion of ritual performance as the place where prayers are offered to the spirit or spiritual power invested in the stool. The kitenta is also a historical document or visual memory. The shape and imagery of the stool may be interpreted as expressing the origin and history of the lineage of the chief who owns it.
Among the Luba, women are viewed as containers of power, possessing the power to bring forth life. The physical beauty and strength of this caryatid figure is conveyed by the fullness of her breasts, the keloid scarification carved in relief on her abdomen and lower body, her dark, smooth skin, and her coiffure and bracelets. These attributes and the ease with which she holds aloft the circular seat attest to her inner power and spiritual authority.
Whitfield Lovell. American, born 1959. Temptation, 2000. Charcoal on wood, found objects (chair, frames, metal implement). 101 x 69 3/4 x 36 inches. Purchased with the Hillyer-Mather-Tryon Fund. SC 2012:12a-g
***On View Through December 31, 2012***
Whitfield Lovell is known for his sculptural tableaux of meticulously-drawn portraits of anonymous African-Americans from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement. SCMA's drawing by Lovell, Run Like the Wind from the Kin series, inspired the Museum's recent exhibition More Than You Know: Works by Whitfield Lovell (January 28–May 1, 2011). The overwhelming response to the exhibition and to Lovell himself, who was resident on campus as the Miller Lecturer and as the featured artist in the Art Department's Print Workshop, led to the search to acquire a sculptural tableau that would permanently represent this important aspect of his work in the Museum's collection. That goal was met with the purchase of Temptation.
Temptation was created in 2000, following Lovell's groundbreaking project Whispers from the Walls in 1999 for the University of North Texas Art Gallery. Whispers was a "walk-in" installation/environment in a re-created one-room house, incorporating the artist's charcoal drawings on wall boards, objects, and sound recordings of music and voices. Temptation incorporates objects—empty frames, a curved metal hook, and a free-standing chair—with a beautiful charcoal drawing on salvaged wood boards of an unidentified young African-American woman. Her clothing places her during the 1920s and the period of the Harlem Renaissance. She has obviously posed for the studio photograph on which the drawing is based. She stands, somewhat self-consciously, next to a small table, with her braceleted left hand on her hip and her right hand resting on a small table with a still life of flowers.
Writing in support of the acquisition, Associate Professor Kevin Quashie of Smith's Afro-American Studies Department noted:
- There is no question that Whitfield Lovell is a giant in the world of contemporary art—the awards and honors speak to this with consummate clarity. What can go unnoticed, though, is how much Lovell's art inspires conversation, how much it facilitates learning. Part of this is the way his work invites the viewer to study and to pay attention—the pieces are compositional and yet they are also accessible. They gesture to history but they also showcase the everyday that gives history its texture.
- Temptation is an especially important piece because it showcases much of Lovell's aesthetic—the full-size charcoal drawing on recovered wood slats, the objects positioned so as to recreate the sense of an interior world (physically and psychologically)…. The dress of the figure featured in Temptation also captures the specificity of a time period that is important to Lovell—the forty years before the Civil Rights Movement, which tends to be neglected in African American history; indeed it is Lovell's attention to this stretch of history that augments his showcasing of the vibrant inner lives of ordinary people.
Christo (Christo Vladimirof Javacheff). American, born Bulgaria, Born 1935. Wrapped Tree (Project for the Garden of Peppino Agrati). 1971. Collage, polyethylene, wax crayon, staples, twine, charcoal, ink, graphite and acrylic on smooth white mat board. Gift of The Pokross Art Collection, donated in accordance with the wishes of Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934 by her children Joan Pokross Curhan, class of 1959, William R. Pokross, and David R. Pokross, Jr. in loving memory of their parents, Muriel Kohn Pokross and David R. Pokross. Copyright Christo 1971
**On View March 2–July 29, 2012**
Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude (1935–2009) combined their talents to create monumental installations that bring attention to the landscape and the built environment. Many of their projects require years of planning in order to receive backing from a large variety of constituents. The projects are completely self-funded through the sale of prints and drawings, which are executed by Christo.
Some of the earliest works by Christo and Jeanne-Claude were "wrappings" in which the artists wrapped a variety of objects in tightly bound fabric, creating abstract sculptures out of everyday items. Wrapped Tree (Project for the Garden of Peppino Agrati) is an outgrowth of these early works.
The Italian industrialist Peppino Agrati first met Christo at a gallery show in 1970, where the artist was showing drawings for some projects he had proposed for the city of Milan. Christo devised the Wrapped Tree project for Agrati's villa in Veduggio, although it was never executed.
A single tree is laid out on a strong diagonal. The wrapping completely changes the character of the tree, from a living entity to an object. The leafless branches are tightly compressed by layers of clear plastic, and the monumental root ball, encased in silver, serves as a dynamic counterweight.
This drawing is one of twenty-two objects donated by the family of David P. and Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934. The Pokross Art Collection will be on view in the Ketcham Gallery on the Museum's third floor until July 29, 2012.
William Kentridge
William Kentridge. South African, born 1955. Man with Megaphone, 1998. Hard- and soft-ground etching, aquatint, and blue crayon on Fabriano Rosapina Bianco 220 gsm paper. Printed by Malcolm Christian, The Caversham Press, South Africa. Published by Kunstverein Munich. Purchased with the Carol Ramsay Chandler Fund
William Kentridge's work was first exhibited in galleries that were at the center of South Africa's artistic resistance to apartheid, and much of his early work criticizes the bourgeois lifestyle made possible by that social system. The artist's inventive imagery, almost always based around the human figure and featuring a familiar cast of characters (including the artist himself), offers intriguing and sometimes oblique commentary on the human condition and human folly.
Man with Megaphone features a self-portrait of the artist, nude and wearing a fedora, facing a tripod-mounted megaphone. The body is rendered in soft-ground etching, and is partially constructed from impressions of the artist's fingerprints, adding a visceral element to the evocation of human flesh. Wispy, looping lines cascade around the figure, as if the sounds from the megaphone are physically assaulting him. A thin blue line separates the two, the artist's only protection from the aural assault.
**On view in Lower Level (LL) galleries through May 13**
Antonio de Bellis
Antonio de Bellis. Italian, c.1616–c.1657.The Liberation of Saint Peter. c.1640s–1650. Oil on canvas. Stretcher: 70 ¼ in. x 102 ½ in. Purchased with the Hillyer-Tryon-Mather Fund, the Beatrice Oenslager Chace, class of 1928, Fund, the Madeleine H. Russell, class of 1937, Fund, and Museum Acquisition Fund
The stylistic revolution known as "baroque art" emerged first in Bologna and then in Rome at the end of the sixteenth century, as artists reacted against the artificiality of Mannerism and adopted more naturalistic modes of expression. The new styles spread quickly from Rome throughout Italy and much of Europe, later developing into the dynamic and emotionally charged works of the High Baroque. With its vigorous naturalism and theatrical light, the Museum's recently acquired painting, The Liberation of Saint Peter by Antonio de Bellis, is a superb example of baroque painting in Naples, Italy.
According to Professor Craig Felton, who brought The Liberation to the Museum's attention, Antonio de Bellis "was one of the foremost students in the studio of Massimo Stanzione (ca. 1585–1656). His paintings are only slowly becoming known. Around 1636–1639, de Bellis was commissioned and painted a series of four works based on the life of Saint Charles Borromeo, for the church of S. Carlo alle Mettere in Naples. De Bellis's personal artistic style is derived from the best of the artists in Naples, especially that of his teacher and from Bernardo Cavallino (1616–1656), who also studied with Stanzione. In addition there is also a clear understanding of the art of Jusepe de Ribera (1591–1652), " the Spanish-born painter who was an important presence in Naples.
The Liberation of Saint Peter depicts the biblical story (Acts 12, verses 3–19) of the apostle Peter's miraculous delivery from prison, a subject treated by many artists. During the night before his impending trial, Peter is visited in prison by an angel, who commands him to dress and leave. The sleeping guards are unaware of the intrusion or the escape. De Bellis emphasizes the sudden appearance of the angel, who rushes into the picture with flying robes and wakens the surprised apostle by grasping him by the edge of his robe.
Eve Straussman-Pflanzer (class of 1999), Associate Curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, notes "the astounding naturalism" of the figures and their debt to Caravaggio (1571–1610). This painting also has many important details that reveal themselves on close inspection, including two keys: one inserted into the lock of the prison door, the second hanging from a blue ribbon. These refer to salvation (to Peter's release from prison and symbolically to Christian redemption) and to the Keys of Heaven, which Peter received from Christ.
As Professor Felton notes, The Liberation's compositional forebears from Piero della Francesca (1415–1492) to Raphael (1483–1520) and from Caravaggio to Giovanni Battista Caracciolo (1578–1635) make this painting particularly useful for teaching purposes. SCMA's painting is one of two major works by de Bellis in this country, in addition to the Drunkeness of Noah at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Jocelyn Lee
Jocelyn Lee. Untitled (Ginger in Maine), 2009. Pigment print mounted on board. Purchased with the fund in honor of Charles Chetham. Copyright Jocelyn Lee. Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe.
From her earliest photographs as a high school student, Jocelyn Lee has been interested in people: both their physical and psychological qualities. She uses a medium-format camera, and her process of framing and shooting is fairly controlled and very slow. Typically, she will "pre-visualize" the shot to a certain degree: her images primarily use natural light, so the positioning of her subject is often determined by the light available, although she does not pose or otherwise direct the sitter. As she sets the shot, she works slowly until the subject relaxes, allowing him or her to settle into their own thoughts, which she says "often animates their face so differently than if they are nervously aware of me or trying to pose." Key to the success of each image is her choice of model, which is intuitive and driven wholly by whether she sees something in them: usually in the way they inhabit their bodies and present themselves to others.
In 2008, Lee began to advertise for models on the website Craigslist, seeking "unique, beautiful and interesting women over 50 (all body types, races) to pose in lingerie or semi-nude" and "men over 45 with beards, wrinkles, tattoos, scars and other interesting physical characteristics to pose nude or semi-nude." The sessions were to take place in hotel rooms in cities around the United States, and the subjects brought their own lingerie and choose whether to pose partially clothed or nude. In these images Lee interrogates the slow erosion of cultural signs of power: the loss of physical beauty and strength.
Untitled (Ginger in Maine), shows a woman with long blonde hair standing in bright sunshine flooding from the right. Her cast shadow is lithe and seductive, resembling one of the silhouettes from the opening credit of the 1970s television show "Charlie's Angels." She clearly sees herself as a sexual being: Her nails are painted deep red, her hair is artfully tousseled, and she wears lacy pink lingerie and matching lipstick. Her heavily lined eyes look beyond the frame, and her shoulders are thrown back in a posture of self-assured display. Illuminated by the strong light, her body shows her age: her midsection is slack, showing the signs of multiple pregnancies, her skin is mottled, and her face is a fossil record of a life that hasn't been easy. The lingerie signals her wish to be desirable, and the vulnerability that comes with that. Indeed, there is a profound "has-been" or "wanna-be" quality that Lee recognizes but does not judge.
Lee's portraits are interactive, yet mute, allowing us to deeply contemplate our encounter with her subjects, and by extension, recognize ourselves.
**Currently not on view but available to view by appointment in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.**
Martha Wilson
Martha Wilson. American, born 1947. A Portfolio of Models, 1974 (printed in 2008). Seven gelatin silver prints with typewritten text, 20 x 14 inches each (framed). Purchased with the Dorothy C. Miller, class of 1925, Fund. Copyright Martha Wilson. Courtesy of P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe.
A central figure in first-generation feminist art, Martha Wilson is best known as the founder/director of Franklin Furnace Archive, which was established in 1976 to support and document ephemeral avant-garde art (primarily performance and publishing). A Portfolio of Models (1974) is an early photo-text work by Wilson, one of a limited number of collectible works by the artist. Consisting of seven black and white photographs with typewritten text, the work addresses the stereotyped roles available to American women during the mid-twentieth century, with particular emphasis on gender and sexuality, as well as the societal pressure of the "ideal."
The first image in the portfolio, The Goddess, sets the tone of the portfolio. The image is of a woman striking a dramatic pose against a solid black backdrop. An incisive and humorous text, typewritten by the artist, hangs below the image: "The Goddess. Her presence is felt by both men and women, and every member of society past the age of five is aware of her. She is the fashion-model archetype, an implicit image of reference. She always looks perfect. She also smells wonderful at all times. She has "sex-appeal." However, she is asexual. We look but don't imagine. Whether she is intelligent is irrelevant."
A Portfolio of Models and Wilson's photo-text works are representative of the emerging strain of feminist conceptual performance art during the1970s. Wilson's work pre-dates Cindy Sherman's influential Film Stills (which also question stereotypes and the performative roles of women in society, albeit from a cinematic perspective) by five years. This strain of work sparked the "picture generation" work of the 1980s where the role of photography came under close scrutiny for its ability to mask or manipulate reality.
**Currently not on view but available to view by appointment in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.**
Whitfield Lovell
Whitfield Lovell. American, born 1959. Deuce, 2011. Lithograph printed in black on paper. Gift of the artist through the Smith College Print Workshop. Copyright Whitfield Lovell. Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York.
This print by Whitfield Lovell was created at the Smith College Print Workshop in 2011 with the assistance of master printer Maurice Sanchez. Held annually in the Harnish Graphics Studio in Hillyer Hall, the Print Workshop brings together visual artists and master printers to collaborate on a limited-edition print. The general public is invited to observe the creative process, and students are given the opportunity to assist in the making of a print. Last year's Print Workshop was held in conjunction with SCMA's exhibition More Than You Know: Works by Whitfield Lovell (January 28–May 1, 2011).
Born in the Bronx, Whitfield Lovell's earliest experience making art was assisting his father, an amateur photographer, in the darkroom. Lovell's drawings and prints are often worked up from the early twentieth century photographs of African-Americans he collects from flea markets, junk shops and estate sales. This double portrait of a man suggests the identification photographs Lovell often uses as models for his work—an unsmiling passport photograph or mug shot. The severe profile and frontal views also recall racist ethnographic photographs or illustrations of African-Americans. Although the images that Lovell plays on evoke restriction and oppression, Lovell's gorgeously rendered print lends dignity and a sense of personal identity to another otherwise anonymous face.
Whitfield Lovell's portraits investigate the ways in which human identity is represented and perceived. While an identification photograph frames identity or personhood in terms of membership in social groups, Lovell insists upon viewing identity in individualistic terms. The identity of the man in Deuce is fundamentally mysterious and irreducible. That said, Lovell does provide some clues as to the identity of his subject. The title Deuce, which refers to the double view of its subject, can also refer to the two in cards or dice. This secondary meaning is reinforced by the inversion of the second head in the print, recalling the pictures or symbols on playing cards. Deuce can also mean bad luck or mischief—it's an old-fashioned curse word ("a deuce on him!"). Is this man the trouble maker, or the one in trouble?
**Currently not on view but available to view by appointment in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.**
Andrea Fraser
Andrea Fraser. American, Born 1965. Little Frank and His Carp, 2001. Single-channel video. Purchased with funds from the Contemporary Associates. Courtesy of Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York
Running time: 6 minutes
Press Release
Andrea Fraser's artistic practice includes performance-based work, video, context art, and institutional critique. In her 1989 work Museum Highlights, she adopts the persona of a tour guide but delivers outlandish information as she leads unsuspecting visitors through the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Little Frank and His Carp is a performance work filmed by hidden cameras at (and without the prior knowledge or permission of) the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. Prompted by an audio guide, the ubiquitous tool of the museum visit, Fraser follows its instructions and "interacts" with architect Frank Gehry's fish-shaped tower at the center of the hall.
In a 2005 interview, Fraser discussed Little Frank and His Carp:
- What struck me about the audio tour for the Guggenheim Bilbao was the explicitness of the seduction....The audio guide promises transcendence of the social through a transgression: the always forbidden touching of art—or here, architecture-as-art….
- The tour distances the museum from the difficulties of "modern art," claiming that the building's sensual appeal "has nothing to do with age or class or education." Freed of social/symbolic restrictions, we can make ourselves at home in the sensual, caring arms of the (mother) museum.
On view through February 26, 2012.
Roman Signer
Roman Signer, Swiss, born 1938. 56 Small Helicopters (56 Kleine Helikopter). 2008. Single channel video. Purchased with funds from the Contemporary Associates. Running time: 3 minutes 15 seconds.
Roman Signer is best known for his videos and photographs of rockets, catapults, and staged explosion and combustion events. This video, purchased with funds from the Contemporary Associates of the Museum, shows a squadron of 56 remote-controlled toy helicopters. They rise into the air, collide with each other, carom off the ceiling and walls, and finally die in mechanical spasms on the floor. The effect is both humorous and disturbing, as the toys seem to transform into a swarm of gigantic insects intent on their own self-destruction.
Signer's unique body of work is described by Aimee Walleston (Art in America, 9/30/10): At the age of 72, Swiss artist Roman Signer makes work that seeks to unbind normative space and time…. His film, video and photographic works deal with their natural settings and give little pause to contemplate the urban rumblings of the world at large. The body of this practice comprises simple, elegant forms, animated and detonated to elucidate the cinematic ideas of suspense, climax and conclusion. His best-known works are Super 8 films and video wherein the artist stages a spectacular event…or makes a banal moment spectacular in its slapstick simplicity.
Dread Scott
Dread Scott. American, born 1965. Boom BOOM!. 2001. Screenprint in printed in color on Stonehenge white paper. Purchased through the efforts of students in the class "Collecting 101," January 2011.
A multi-media artist, Dread Scott often uses prints in his installations which he calls "revolutionary art to propel history forward." A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (where his 1989 installation What Is the Proper Way to Display a US Flag? caused an uproar, resulting in condemnation by then-president George H.W. Bush and flag protecting legislation passed by the U.S. Senate), Scott adopted his artistic moniker in honor of Dred Scott, the slave whose Supreme Court case in 1857 resulted in a statement by 7 of the 9 justices upholding the "non-citizen" status of African-American slaves. An avowed Maoist, Scott uses his work as a platform to provoke critical thought about American society and the systems under which our society operates. Boom BOOM! focuses squarely on American capitalism, linking the success of American financial markets with unrest and revolt across the world. A newspaper image of a frenzied group of brokers on the floor of the New York stock exchange is contrasted with an overlayed image of Nepalese guerillas engaged in combat. On top of both images is a large yellow stencil of the word "BOOM," referring both to the sounds of gunfire and of an explosive upturn in the financial markets.
Moyra Davey
Moyra Davey. Canadian, born 1958. 16 Photographs from Paris, 2009. C-prints with tape, postage, and ink. Purchased with the Dorothy C. Miller, class of 1925, Fund.
Moyra Davey, Canadian-born photographer, filmmaker, and writer, is known for the intimacy of her works, which often feature accumulated objects that have personal value to their owners. Her series of c-prints 16 Photographs from Paris features built-up clusters of objects on her desk, on café tables, and in the city's cemetaries, drawing the viewer into the intimate still lives they create. After printing, the photographs were folded up and mailed to friends: the handwritten addresses and postage stamps, applied directly to the prints, become a part of the image. This contributes to the aura of nostalgia that surrounds the works, reflecting on the personal objects that make up our daily lives. (On view in Nixon Gallery through April 17.)
George Bellows
George Wesley Bellows. American, 1882-1925
Pennsylvania Excavation, February 1907
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mary Gordon Roberts, class of 1960, in honor of the 50th reunion of her class
Image: Petegorsky/Gipe
Painted in February 1907, Pennsylvania Excavation depicts the site preparation for the construction of Pennsylvania Station in midtown Manhattan. The creation of this railroad station and the system of tunnels it crowned transformed New York City by connecting it to a national transportation and commercial network. The painting was as revolutionary as the event it portrays. When it was first exhibited at the National Academy of Design it was described in the New York Sun as a great gaping wound in the dirty earth and helped establish George Bellows' reputation as a brash young artist advancing a new kind of realism. His gritty views of New York's neighborhoods and people, drawn from everyday life, associated him with an early twentieth-century movement that came to be known as the Ashcan School.
Cao Fei
Cao Fei, born 1978, Guangzhou, China. (Lives and works in Beijing, China.)
The Birth of RMB City, 2009. Single-channel color video with sound, duration: 10.5 minutes
Museum purchase: Contemporary Associates acquisition
Image: Courtesy of the artist and Lombard-Freid Projects
The Birth of RMB City is an animated video of the construction of a virtual city named after the Chinese unit of currency (RMB/Renminbi). The video is a cutting-edge example of art associated with the Internet, where RMB City currently exists as a virtual and interactive community on the Second Life platform. Working with Vitamin Creative Space, Cao Fei constructed her city as an amalgamation of old and new Asian architectural landmarks, including the People's Palace (Beijing), Rem Koolhaas' CCTV building (Beijing), the Birds Nest stadium from the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, and Jiang Huan Cheng's Oriental Pearl Tower (Shanghai), among others. The Birth of RMB City was the first purchase of the Museum's newly established Contemporary Associates group, whose membership dues are used annually to acquire a work of contemporary art for SCMA's collection, primarily in the area of new media and photography.


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Wallenberg family asks Obama for help
President Obama paid tribute Wednesday to Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust, and also heard an emotional request from Wallenberg's family.
The family asked Obama to help them pressure Russia in an effort to learn what exactly happened to Wallenberg after his arrest by the Soviet Union in 1945.
"Researchers need committed support in their efforts to obtain direct and uncensored access to Russian archival collections, especially those of the Soviet era intelligence and security services," says a Wallenberg family letter to Obama obtained by the Associated Press.
The Wallenberg family also told Obama: "It is time that the world finally learns what happened to him ... It would be a fitting tribute to all those who risk their lives every day in the defense of civil liberties and to the millions of victims who, in spite of all efforts, could not be saved."
During a ceremony Wednesday at the Great Synagogue in Stockholm, the U.S. president also told Swedish citizens that Wallenberg is "beloved in both our countries."
Said Obama: "Wallenberg's life is a challenge to us all -- to live those virtues of empathy and compassion, even when it's hard, even when it involves great risk."
Some background from the Associated Press:
"Wallenberg's work as Sweden's envoy in Budapest in 1944 was a cover for a humanitarian mission as secret emissary of the U.S. War Refugee Board, created in an attempt to stem the annihilation of Europe's Jews. He saved at least 20,000 Jews in Budapest by giving them Swedish travel documents or moving them to safe houses and is also credited with dissuading German officers from massacring the 70,000 inhabitants of the city's ghetto.
"Wallenberg disappeared after being arrested in Budapest by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. The Soviets initially denied Wallenberg was in their custody, but then said he died of a heart attack in prison on July 17, 1947."

subset: commoncrawl


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Many of you might be trapped indoors tonight. You may be huddled up for warmth, trying to beat the cold weather with friends and board games. Well worry not, because this dog will keep you company.
In this video posted by Scott Merrihew, a dog named Mosley frolics his dog butt off in what are undeniably some of the coolest Batman-themed pajamas a dog has ever worn. So sit back, relax, order some take-out, and watch the true meaning of winter bliss unfurl before your eyes.
Via The Daily Dot
To contact the author of this post, write to email@example.com or find him on Twitter @papapishu


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Tech Committee Agenda 18 June 2013
- Welcome to our new at-large committee members: Bozana Bokan (Free University Berlin), Marc Bria (Autonomous University of Barcelona)
- Quick round of updates
- What have we all been working on PKP-wise?
- Any particular needs that the group can help with?
- At-large membership: one more member to invite
- 3 volunteers from members committee - Brian Owen has asked the Members Committee to appoint 3 people. We hope to have them on board soon, well in advance of the AGM.
- Reviewing our mandate, cont'd.
- Charge #1: provide technical input and advice on PKP's software development methodologies and priorities. A couple of meetings ago, the group came to the consensus that PKP priorities and methodologies are unclear. We are working towards fixing this so that we can begin to give input.
- James has kindly provided a #Round up of documentation relating to PKP Priorities and Methodologies. Please read and we will discuss. What needs clarification? What would this information ideally look like?
- Barbara has taken a stab at organizing the PKP wiki so that this kind of info can be more easily found (see Main page - New). What do people think?
- Committee communication
- Google group -- any progress on finding out whether or not we can have a listserv hosted by SFU?
- There is a #pkp channel on chat.freenode.net -- come hang out! New to IRC? Read the IRC Help page or feel free to ask Barbara :-)
- PKP AGM and conference in Mexico City, August 19-21
- Who is going?
- What are our goals for the PKP Tech Committee meeting there?
- Next meeting: how about Tuesday 16 July, 2013?
- Anything else?
Round up of documentation relating to PKP Priorities and Methodologies
Publicly available:
-- general priorities are grouped into the general milestones chart: http://pkp.sfu.ca/wiki/index.php?title=General_Software_Milestones
-- each software application has its own individual roadmap as well, eg: http://pkp.sfu.ca/wiki/index.php?title=OJS_Roadmap
-- we have also started individual project pages to help track project progress, priorities, etc. and provide a clear location for pointing interested parties (eg. http://pkp.sfu.ca/wiki/index.php?title=XML_Publishing)
-- we also collect and track bugs etc. in Bugzilla. There are several different priority markers available (priority, severity, version), but as a team we really only use the "version" marker to establish within what timeframe a bug should be completed (eg. all bugs marked 2.4.2 must be closed for OJS 2.4.2 release). We could probably do better here.
-- in terms of tackling development projects or bugs that have been brought to our attention from the community, we use a very ad-hoc method of determining priority, based mostly on subjective terms -- how often we feel something has been brought up, squeaky wheel, etc.
Privately available:
-- Asana for tracking internal PKP tasks and priorities.
-- Our own weekly meetings (PKP Developer meeting on Mondays; general PKP meeting on Fridays)
-- Various interminable Google Docs
Publicly available:
-- There's a fair bit of developer documentation on the wiki: http://pkp.sfu.ca/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page#Development_Topics. This covers getting the code, contributing patches, interacting with github, etc. The documentation could probably stand a going-over and simplified, and needs to be promoted.
-- we have only recently cleaned up our patch submission guidelines to favour git, for example.
-- There's also the currently fairly out-of-date OJS Technical Reference (http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/docs/technicalreference/2.1/index.html). While out of date, this is as far as I know the only place that gives a really good breakdown of PKP's coding conventions, the MVC framework that we use, and a thorough (though let's stress, out of date) breakdown of the OJS database. It may be worth considering how we adapt this document to the wiki, and to our other applications.
Privately available:
-- PKP also stores a fair bit of documentation on hosting practices, whether for our team (eg. how to install a journal on our servers) or for our clients (how to use the Custom Block Manager in conjunction with Static Pages). While most of our internal methodology should remain internal, the client-based documentation should be opened up to the wider community. It's the sort of questions we find ourselves answering over and over (how to set up DOIs; how to add content like a CMS) that our current documentation doesn't adequately cover.


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Interferon Beta Treatment Did Not Slow Progression of Disability in Study
By Salynn Boyles
WebMD Health News
Latest Neurology News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
July 17, 2012 -- Disease-modifying drugs have been game-changers for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. The drugs help prevent relapses, but now new research questions whether they slow progression of disability from the disease.
In a study of patients with relapsing-remitting MS, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, use of the most widely prescribed disease-modifying drugs, interferon beta, was not associated with a delay in disability progression.
Patients treated with interferon beta were no less likely than untreated patients to progress to the point where they required a cane to walk, which is a benchmark measure of disease progression.
"Treatment with beta interferon was not associated with a delay in progression to disability," says researcher Helen Tremlett, PhD, of the University of British Columbia. "It may be that in subgroups of patients these drugs do slow disease progression, but we were not able to show this."
Two Decades of Disease-Modifying Drugs
As many as 2.5 million people worldwide and 350,000 people in the U.S. have multiple sclerosis, a progressive disease of the central nervous system that leaves most patients functionally disabled within a decade or two of diagnosis.
In 1993, the interferon beta drug Betaseron became the first of the drugs known as a disease-modifying agent approved by the FDA for the treatment of MS. Other interferon beta treatments that entered the U.S. market include Avonex, Extavia, and Rebif.
The drugs were approved for the treatment of relapsing forms of MS to reduce the frequency of MS relapses (also known as flare-ups) and to, with some of the drugs, slow physical disability.
Although they are also widely believed to delay disease progression in patients with the relapsing-remitting form of the disease, little research has been done to show this. Relapsing-remitting MS is characterized by unpredictable flare-ups with a worsening of symptoms followed by full, partial, or no recovery of some prior function. It generally occurs early in the course of MS for most people. It can develop into progressive disease, a gradual but steady loss of ability.
The newly published study included 868 patients with relapsing-remitting MS followed for an average of five years during treatment with an interferon beta drug.
These patients were compared to a similar-sized group of untreated patients followed for an average of four years.
And because British Columbia has a detailed database of MS patients dating back to the 1980s, the researchers were also able to compare the treated patients to a second group of about 1,000 patients followed in the years before disease-modifying drugs became available.
Different Study, Different Outcome
After adjustment for other influences on disease progression, treatment with interferon beta was not found to be associated with a reduction in progression to disability.
These findings appear to conflict with an Italian trial published earlier this year, says Timothy Coetzee, PhD, who is chief research officer of the National MS Society.
In that study, investigators followed nearly 1,200 MS patients who had had the disease for at least a decade.
They found that patients who took interferon beta and other disease-modifying therapies were less likely to progress from relapsing-remitting MS to a more advanced form of the disease.
Coetzee adds that the different results of the two studies illustrate the limitations in the measures used to assess MS therapies.
"Because of the wide variability in MS, it is likely that these drugs do delay disease progression in some patients, but not in others," Coetzee says. "The problem is that we currently have no tools to help us identify patients who will and will not respond."
Drug Maker Responds to Study
In a written response to the new study, Avonex manufacturer Biogen Idec Inc. says the findings are contradicted by other trials.
"In carefully controlled clinical trials, Avonex has demonstrated slowing of disability progression, and regulators worldwide have reviewed and confirmed the positive impact of Avonex on slowing disease progression," spokesman Jeff Boyle writes.
SOURCES: Shirani, A. Journal of the American Medical Association, July 18, 2012. Helen Tremlett, PhD, Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Timothy Coetzee, PhD, chief research officer, National MS Society. Biogen Idec Inc. statement, July 16, 2012. News release, JAMA Media. National MS Society: "Italian Researchers Find that MS Disease-Modifying Therapies Reduce the Risk of Future MS Progression."
©2012 WebMD, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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text:
Formula Guide, Solid Coated and Uncoated
by Pantone
Redesigned in a larger format which provides more color area with which to work, improved readability of important color data, and better accessibility to all colors on the pages. The formula guide is an essential tool for graphic designers, pre-press professionals, and printers. Its simple design provides a convenient and portable reference that can accompany you at client presentations or on press. This two-guide set contains 1,114 PANTONE Colors on coated and uncoated stocks. Each guide measures 9 1/4 in. x 1 5/8 in. x 1 1/4 in. Formula Guide Solid Uncoated ISBN 1590650638. Formula Guide Solid Coated ISBN 159065062X
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Th& Accounting Historians Journal Vol. 9, No. 1 Spring 1982
Harry Zvi Davis BARUCH COLLEGE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
Abstract: The history of LIFO illustrates the interplay of taxes and the general ac-ceptance of accounting principles. In this paper, the gradual acceptance of LIFO in the United States is traced. The study focuses on both the theoretical evolution of LIFO and its acceptance by taxing authorities and accountants.
According to the American Accounting Association Committee on Accounting History,1 the prime example of an historical study which deserves attention is "the evolution of last-in, first-out (LIFO) inven-tory accounting as an acceptable method of computing taxable in-come for Federal Income Tax purposes and its subsequent evolu-tion as a 'generally accepted accounting principle.' " In this paper, the acceptance of LIFO in the United States is traced.
Historically, LIFO can be viewed as an outgrowth of the base stock method.2 Therefore, a brief history of the base stock method in England and in America is presented before the history of LIFO.
The Base Stock Method—Development in England and America Definition of Base Stock
A company that uses the base stock method defines a certain quantity of inventory as the normal amount necessary to continue operations. This quantity of inventory, sometimes called the "nor-mal stock," is the minimum necessary as long as the business does not reduce or enlarge operations. Since the base stock is consid-ered a permanent investment, any change in its value is ignored. In contrast, inventory above the normal quantity is intended for im-mediate resale and is thus a transitory investment. Goods sold are deemed to come from quantities purchased over and above the
I wish to thank David O. Green, Nathan Kahn, Kenneth Most, Hanns-Martin
Schoenfeld, Norman Berman, and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful com-ments.


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Regular readers may recall that I'm not a big fan of this Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation data series, as it is unusually noisy and subject to further revisions and modeling adjustments. (See Ignore Today's — and Most — Jobs Reports). As we discussed not too long ago, the Employment Situation report is "the single most over-hyped, over-analyzed, over-emphasized, least-understood economic release known to mankind." It is also one of the "least useful economic data points" at least as far as investors are concerned.
Friday's disappointing report for January looks to have an inordinate number of asterisks:
Was December's poor report a one-off?
Has stormy weather in the Midwest and Northeast hurt hiring?
What is the net result of the end of federal unemployment benefits?
Are private-sector job gains still outpacing government hiring?
Is slowing real estate a drag on other sectors?
The acutal January number was 113,000 jobs gained, following the weak December nonfarm payrolls gain of 87,000. Estimates had ranged from 105,000 to 270,000.
To me, the most fascinating aspect of the employment report is the hoopla leading up to it. It is merely a single monthly data point in an ongoing series, one that 90% of the time is almost insignificant.
Once we get past the noise factor, we then must confront the issue of how we experience time. The intersection between our memories of the past with our imagined expectations of the future creates a sort of unique awareness of the moment. This perhaps helps to explain the recency effect.
There are multiple manifestations of this confused temporal understanding. Emphasis is placed on what is occurring at the moment, regardless of its significance. Planning for the long-term future suffers, reflecting an inability to accurately imagine the future.
This is incredibly important when it comes to the sort of policy issues we run into where the benefits are off in the future but the costs are here in the present.
Consider this while you excitedly wait for yet another monthly payroll report.
(Barry Ritholtz writes about finance, the economy and the business world for Bloomberg View. Follow him on Twitter@Ritholtz. To contact the author of this article: Barry Ritholtz at email@example.com.)