Thursday, April 26, 1934
Daily Nebraskan
Paga7
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By Shelley Speny '
cud Eric Petersen
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1 he statements made by the
existence of a women's art show at
UNL are important.
The extraordinary range of tech
niques and theories spred across the
walls of the Nebraska Union demon
strate, for all those in need of empiri
cal proof, the fact that "women's art"
has no distinctive feminine charac
teristics and no peculiar subjects
which set it apart from "men's art" or
"real art." Even the works with femi- ...
nist tones such as Daddy's Little Girl
by Jean Bean, Becky Ross' I Am the
Catalyst and Jan Havranek's Look's
Ark, are more personal or meditative
than polemical.
Another statement made by the
display concerns us, the audience. A
women's art show, even a Women's
Week, would be quite unnecessary if
we were all taught from the cradle
that men and women are equal in
talents and accomplishments. There
is no need for a Men's Week or a
men's art show because we all know
the political, social and artistic issues
which concern men: war, peace, fami
lies, businesses, realism, abstraction .
. . AIL issues concern men.
, So the women's art show is an edu
cation experience for us, as well as
for the women involved. For many of
the artists, the show offers a very
rare opportunity to display their
work and thus to identify publicly
with other artists.
The collecting and hanging of the
works was a cooperative effort which
promoted communication among the
women involved but more importantly,
it emphasized the autonomous aspect
of the. show. Lincoln artists in this
case were not dependent upon a gal
lery's space allotment, the saleabiBty
of their works, or the whims of a
museum director the artists them
selves obtained the space, advertised
the project, collected and sorted the
works and finally hung them.
If, through such cooperation, some
independence can be gained by the
notoriously patronized artistic com
munity, and by women no less, then
there must be hope for us alL
Jean Bean's Daddy 's Little Girl is
among the most emotional pieces in
subject, texture and color. A variety
of media are combined to give the
surface a warm and waxy-crayon
look. The muddy brown, black, red
" and corpse-white colors are layered,
scratched and rubbed. This unusual
textural emphasis could have over
whelmed a weaker subject. But the
" viewer's attention cannot wander long
from the face of the figure, whose
eyes are so hollowed and whose pose
is so paralyzed and paralyzing that
the name "little girl" becomes absurd.
A traditionally cheerful bluebird in
flourescent plumage sits in the
corner opposite her and both are
motionless, yet there is a tension and
energy breaking through this parlor
scene: the veil of childish scrawlings
which covers it whispering, "Daddy,
Daddy, Daddy ..."
Bean's untitled abstract work has
the same fascination of the carefully
worked mixed media texture. Two
barely recognizable figures of Marilyn
Monroe (from the photograph of her
standing with Joe DiMaggio over a
subway vent) become fluid and
Graceful forms which focus the inter
est in the lower left corner, with a
lHit frure centered in deep purple
red and a dark one placed in grayish
white in the upper halt
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.......
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In Lucent Memory, a woodcut by
Karen Kunc, has a singular beauty of
shape and color. Several triangular
forms are rounded and framed by
white or gray. All shapes have the
delicately ribbed look of crepe paper,
and the juxtapositions of pastel
colors yellow and purple, green
and purple - are effective.
Becky Ross's oil painting I Am the
Catalyst is a strong statement of
female power. A male figure sits in
stale gray and cold blue, its head
with a skull-like aspect and hollow
eye cavities. The contrasting female
figure is done in vibrant reds and
oranges and pinks one strong
broad stroke in pink effectively
represents the crossed leg. Particu
larly effective is the burning life sug
gested by the intense red forehead
Jean Dean's Daddy's Little Girl
and the apparent burning gaze.
Ms. E's Tool Protector, a clay sculp
ture by Mary Ruth Albert, is striking
and whimsical, yet the four foot piece
is oddly powerful as well evoking the
fertility figures made at the very
beginnings of art. Holding a screw
driver and a hammer, which unfor
tunately broke off near the start of
the show, the female figure has an
amorphous totem-like head, and sev
eral whimsical details in the very flat
yellow and brown glaze exuberant
breasts, a protruding navel, and -.
starfish-like swirls under its arms.
A watercoior and a drawing by
Constance Boje are extremely lovely
in their conception and finish. Both
are of abstracted nude female fig
' ures. Electric Blues has a delicate
shading of colors from beige to rose
Crs'.j AniresenDs" Nebrcskan
and .strong reds; two accents in neon
blue bring things together beautifully.
Woman, Dressing shows great inter
est in curving lines, like waves of '
motion, coming out and away from
the drawn figure. v
Julie Vosoba's collage Window Box
i0; Maries has a nice feeling for
shape and the contrast of flat black
with delicate greens and oranges; a
white space outlined in black
becomes a flower balancing a black
one outlined in orange on the other
side. :' '
Animal Spots, a woodcut by Cecile
Broz, is a picture of great childlike
delight; an amorphous, dutifully
spotted figure seems to hide its head
in a forest of blue and purple squig
glss which recall the wildest abandon
of crayons.