Fall 2022 - The Figure

THE
MUSEUM
O F
FINE ARTS,
HOUSTON
MAGAZINE
The Figure
01

THE
MUSEUM
O F
FINE ARTS,
HOUSTON
MAGAZINE
The Figure
Issue 23 / 2022
02 Welcome
04 Backstory
08 Surfacing
14 Object Lesson
16 Portfolio
26 Profile
30 In the Mix
38 Series
02
42 Up Close
44 Five Minutes With
46 Exhibition Funders
47 Credits
48 Coming Soon

The Figure
Depictions of the figure can be traced across millennia of human history,
from the fertility talisman popularly known as the Venus of Willendorf,
which has been dated back as far as 23,000 BCE, to Ron Mueck’s closely
observed Woman with Shopping, created in 2014. This coming season,
the Museum’s exhibition schedule offers a rich array of works addressing
the figure throughout the ages, from the diminutive gold figurines of
ancient American cultures seen in Golden Worlds: The Portable Universe
of Indigenous Colombia, to the hauntingly attenuated personages of Alberto
Giacometti: Toward the Ultimate Figure, to the deeply personal meditations
on self and society explored in Philip Guston Now.
01
105 1/2 × 12 7/8 × 19 3/4”

G A R Y T I N T E R O W , D I R E C T O R
T H E M A R G A R E T A L K E K W I L L I A M S C H A I R
T H E M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , H O U S T O N
The Figure
W E L C O M E
02
Each approx.:
74 5/8 × 45 5/8 × 7 3/8”
It seems that every few decades a startling discovery is made that pushes the earliest
evidence of art-making even further back in time. For years, the Venus of Hohle Fels, some
35,000 years old, was regarded among the earliest surviving sculptural representations
of the human figure; now, that distinction belongs to the Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel,
most likely made by a member of our species, Homo sapiens, about 40,000 years ago.
No doubt other exciting finds will emerge, and advancing technology will provide more
accurate dating of these fascinating objects.
While the dates of the oldest artistic objects continue to be a matter of debate (some
refined utensils are said to be more than 100,000 years old), so too the identities of the
makers are hotly contested. If there is a consensus to be observed, it may be that one
of the defining characteristics of modern humanity is the making of art. Early depictions
feature animals, creatures that provided the essentials of life, food, and clothing, but they
were inevitably paired with representations of humans, sometimes given animal anatomy
in order to visualize supernatural beings.
As we see in the rich compendium provided by this issue of h Magazine, figural representation
has been a constant, perhaps the constant, obsession of artistic creation. The
pleasure that we enjoy and the thoughts that are launched when contemplating these
objects are most certainly the raison d’être of art, which is a deeply rooted function, and
a defining feature, of our humanity.
Yours sincerely,

A Figure Revisited
Primarily known for his paintings, Henri Matisse (1869–1954) broke with
sculptural conventions with Back I–IV. Unusually focused on the back
of a figure and created over two decades, from 1909 to about 1930, this
sequence is best understood as one sculpture reconceived over time,
tracing Matisse’s shift from naturalism to reductive abstraction.
03

04

The exhibition Alberto Giacometti: Toward the Ultimate Figure, co-organized by the Fondation
Giacometti in Paris and the Cleveland Museum of Art, will be presented in the Upper Brown Pavilion
of the Caroline Wiess Law Building from November 13, 2022, through February 12, 2023.
Toward
the Ultimate
Figure
“Figures were never for me a compact mass but like a transparent construction,”
wrote the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) to his New York
gallerist Pierre Matisse in 1947. The figure—and how to approach it—was
a lifelong concern of the artist’s. Looking back on his career to that date,
Giacometti explained the evolution of his artistic process to Matisse. He had
produced his first bust in 1914 and had continued to work from models and
draw from nature while studying at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière 05
in Paris.
After graduation, he began producing Cubist-inflected works. Rather
than using live models, Giacometti shifted to working from memory and
23 3/4 × 19 1/8”
from his imagination. The symbolic qualities of the sculptures that he made
during that time led him to be associated with the Surrealists from 1930 to
1935. He ultimately broke with the group when he decided to return to using
live models. However, Giacometti remained unsatisfied with the results, and
by 1940 he once again determined to work from memory. He wrote, “The
sculptures became smaller and smaller . . . often they became so tiny that
with one touch of my knife they disappeared into dust. But head and figures
seemed to me to have a bit of truth only when small. All this changed a little
in 1945 through drawing. This led me to want to make larger figures, but then
65 × 6 1/2 × 13 1/2”
to my surprise, they achieved a likeness only when tall and slender.”
B A C K S T O R Y
Taking a Stand
The tall standing women that frequently recur in Giacometti’s oeuvre
bring to mind ancient Egyptian pharaonic statues. Femme debout
(Standing Woman; Tall Figure) (1948–49) is from Giacometti’s early foray
into the form. He had initially created erect female figures at a small
scale, but they began to grow in size in the immediate postwar period.
This example stands more than five feet tall. Although life-size in height,
the woman appears otherworldly due to her exceedingly slender build.

B A C K S T O R Y
06
In the postwar years, with the rise of existential thought in
Paris, Giacometti began making the tall, attenuated forms for
which he is best known today. Although he often captured
likenesses of specific individuals in busts (his brother Diego
and his wife Annette were recurring subjects), he also
produced sculptures of anonymous figures, as seen in his
series of walking men and standing women. Their elongated
frames and roughly textured surfaces make them appear
as stand-ins for humanity at large. Synthesizing figuration,
Surrealism, and abstraction, they seem to reflect both on iconic
images from antiquity and on the modern human condition.
These figures demonstrate what the existentialist philosopher
Jean-Paul Sartre referred to as Giacometti’s “insistent
search for the absolute.” In the catalogue preface for
Giacometti’s 1948 exhibition at Pierre Matisse Gallery, Sartre
wrote, “His ambiguous images disconcert, breaking as they do
with the most cherished habits of our eyes. . . . do they come,
we ask, from a concave mirror, from the fountain of youth, or
from a camp of displaced persons?”
More recently, in the 2022 exhibition catalogue Alberto
Giacometti: Toward the Ultimate Figure, Catherine Grenier,
director of Fondation Giacometti, stated, “He considered that
the main role of art is to reflect reality, particularly through
the image of the human body, but he did not hesitate pushing
representation to its limits.” For the rest of his life, Giacometti
continued testing those limits in his search for the absolute,
creating and often destroying works in his efforts to distill the
figure to its most essential elements.
71 × 10 5/8 × 38 1/4”
Man in Motion
Giacometti’s Walking Man I (1960) derived from a commission for
the plaza of the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City. The artist
conceived of a three-part installation, including bronze sculptures of
a tall woman, a large head, and a walking man. However, he struggled
with getting the proportions right. Unsatisfied with the results of
his models, including this one, he withdrew from the project in 1961.
Nevertheless, that same year Giacometti won the Carnegie Prize
for this sculpture.

A Head for Figures
Giacometti produced portrait busts of a few family members and
friends throughout his career. His final male model was Eli Lotar, a
Romanian filmmaker and photographer whom he had known since
the 1930s, when they both associated with the Surrealists group.
Lotar had since fallen on hard times, but Giacometti elevated him in
a series of three busts, including this one, Bust of a Man (Lotar II),
made in the final years of the artist’s life.
07
22 3/4 × 15 3/8 × 9 7/8”

The works shown here are among those featured in Golden Worlds: The Portable Universe of
Indigenous Colombia, organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, and the Museo del Oro of Banco de la República, Bogota, on view November 6, 2022, through
April 16, 2023, in the Art of the Indigenous Americas Galleries of the Caroline Wiess Law Building.
Figuring and
Adorning the Body
in Ancient Colombia
BY REX KOONTZ
CONSULTING CURATOR OF ANCIENT AMERICAN ART
The Indigenous people of Colombia produced some of the
most finely crafted, deeply meaningful gold art objects in
the Americas before the coming of the Spanish. Much of this
exquisite metalwork represented or was meant to be worn
on the body—or, at times, both. While seemingly straightforward,
the relationship between art and the human figure is
complicated by Indigenous ideas about the body, gold, and
representation. In Indigenous traditions, gold is believed to
transform its wearer. This power of transformation, rather than
the exchange value of gold as money, was the concept that
drove Indigenous creations in gold.
To understand the European relationship to the Indigenous
tradition of goldwork, many may recount the story of El Dorado,
the fabled city of gold. The idea of a golden city galvanized
many European explorers of the 16th century, among them
Sir Walter Raleigh and a number of Spanish conquistadors.
For the Indigenous South Americans of this time, however,
El Dorado referred not to a city but to a man—one who was
sanctified through a covering of gold dust and then bathed in
the waters of a sacred lake. These Native people believed that
the beauty and splendor of goldwork was intimately tied to its
role in sanctifying the human body. Through this ceremony
and the wearing of the gold, the Indigenous South Americans
believed a man was transformed into a powerful ruler.
The works shown here, drawn from the Glassell Collection
at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, demonstrate the significance
and transformative power of gold in relation to the human
figure in Indigenous culture before the arrival of Europeans.
This pectoral (opposite), or chest ornament, is a superb
example of the Calima style, one of the most complex and
celebrated of ancient Colombian metalwork. This type of
pectoral was made throughout the southwestern part of the
country, from about 100 BC to AD 800. Scholars agree that
these pectorals, when taken as a group, are some of the largest
and most impressive gold objects made by ancient Colombian
artists. The combination of a central raised relief and the more
delicate linear decoration on the outside border is typical of
this object type, but the example seen here is particularly
well realized.
A human face forms the center of the composition. Creating
this face was a two-step process: the face was first sculpted in
a hard material, probably a hardwood or stone; then, a flat
sheet of gold was pressed onto the sculpture, creating a raised
impression of the face on the sheet of metal.
The raised face is adorned with nose and ear ornaments,
imitating in miniature the gold ornaments worn by important
Indigenous leaders. The nose ornament was fashioned from a
single gold sheet in an inverted I-shape, with lightly embossed
decoration. The ear ornaments were not adorned with such
designs, however, allowing the viewer to focus on their perfect
geometry.
The central face is a highly conventionalized figure that is
repeated throughout Calima art. Scholars have suggested that
the figure could depict a god or an ancestor. While the central
face follows the traditional model seen throughout Calima
art, the geometric designs on the outer border are unique to
S U R F A C I N G
09
8 3/4 × 11 × 1 1/8”

S U R F A C I N G
10
4 1/8 × 2 × 1/2”
this piece. In this instance, an artist embossed a series of
curvilinear designs filled with hatched parallel lines. The pattern
flows gracefully around the outer edge and frames the standardized
central motif of the face.
One can envision this pectoral on the chest of an Indigenous
Colombian leader engaged in a key speech or dance some
1,500 years ago. The leader’s head would have been surrounded
in gold, with the pectoral below, both ears decked in large gold
earspools, a nose ornament in the center of the face, and a
golden crown on the forehead. The pectoral’s central face would
have echoed, on a smaller scale but in a brilliant metal, the shape
and adornment of the leader’s head just above. In this way, the
Indigenous leader may have attained some sort of identity, or
even union, with the being represented by the standardized
face in the center of this pectoral.
Gold was believed to contain the primordial energy of the sun,
and therefore a leader who wore gold was thought to capture
and channel the sun’s energy. This deeply Indigenous way of
thinking, which sees value not in the material but in its relation to
nature, also best explains the love of Indigenous Colombians for
tumbaga (gold/copper alloys). In such alloys, the yellow color of
gold, associated with the sun and viewed as male, is balanced
by the reddish hue of copper, associated with female energies.
This balance between male and female principles is highly
valued in Indigenous thought. For this reason, much of the
finest ancient Colombian work is not in gold but in gold/
copper alloys that appear slightly reddish gold.
Unlike the pectoral, which was clearly made to be worn, the
function of this Seated Shaman Figure (at left) may not be as
readily apparent. It was cast as a single piece, without the later
addition of wire filigree. The highly conventionalized geometry
of the form runs counter to the more supple naturalism seen in
many ancient Colombian works over the previous millennium.
Seated figures such as this one represent the thoughtful
leader who, through ritual and considered action, becomes
the center of the cosmos, balancing forces for the good of the
people. The objects are called tunjos, although this name likely
was only given to these pieces in the 19th century. These types
of figures are found in the region around Bogotá, the capital
of Colombia, and were made by the Muiscas, the Indigenous
peoples who inhabited that region when the Spanish arrived.
When the Spanish first saw these figures in the 16th century,
they called them santillos (little saints), associating them with
Catholic saint figures—possibly hinting at their Indigenous
meaning as small deity images. Like saints, these objects are
intercessors with key sacred forces. Yet, these statuettes were

not meant to be seen by human eyes—only the gods were
meant to witness them. They were often found in groups as
part of buried offerings near sacred places such as lakes,
streams, and caves.
The seated figure was constructed using the lost-wax casting
method, which consists of laying down a fine sheet of wax for
the body, then adding even finer strands of wax for the linear
elements around the face and arms. The artist would then
construct a mold of some more fire-resistant material and heat
it so that the wax would drain out of the mold, to be replaced by
the molten metal that retains the form of the wax. This technique
produced the distinctly schematic body. Although these linear
elements appear to be filigree (wire added later), they were
actually cast using thin strands of wax. The human body is
here a geometric figure formed by the artist out of a wax sheet,
to which the linear elements defining appendages and facial
features were added, also as wax elements. There is little
interest in the three-dimensional human body, as seen in the
pectoral on page 8; instead, it is as if the wax serves as a sheet
on which to write a message to the gods through the controlled
geometric forms and linear patterns of this figure, which are
similar to any number of other tunjos from this region and period.
The seated figure is an example of a key theme in Indigenous
Colombian goldwork: the presentation of authority. There
were two great postures of authority and power in these
ancient Indigenous societies: one was the seated figure on a
chair or bench, as in the Muisca figure on page 10, and the
other is a figure seated on the floor, with hands around
knees (at right). For both, the posture, rather than the elements
of the human body, is what mattered to the artist; often the
rest of the body is indicated with the barest of elements. In this
example, the artist focused on melding the human form and
the basket. The baskets that served as models were woven
with plant fibers. The associated Indigenous metaphor relates
the weaving of baskets with plant fibers to the human being
who is woven with thought—the human is transformed into a
receptacle of knowledge. The basket-body indicates that the
human is ready to receive and gather the world’s wisdom.
Like the Muisca Seated Shaman Figure, the human body
depicted on page 12 is registered mainly in two dimensions—
as no more than a gold sheet. In this Malagana (southwest
Colombia) figure, the artist stresses the outer contours, leaving
the interior of the body largely without detail. The overall effect
is of a paper-thin cutout. The amount of skill necessary to
hammer the gold into such a fine sheet is one of the central
accomplishments of the artist. After the sheet was hammered
flat, it was then a matter of cutting it with a firm hand to
create the conventionalized frontal figure. A few lines
were embossed to indicate hands and feet, but the
visual interest is in the body’s contour. The only exception
is the area of the face, where the artist has gone to
greater lengths in indicating the eyes, nose, ears, and mouth
and teeth.
The function of this thin golden man remains obscure.
The piece may have been placed in a burial alongside or on
the deceased, as most gold objects were in this region.
Unlike the majority of other Indigenous Colombian gold items,
these thin men and other Malagana grave goods have no wear
patterns that indicate they were used in life; rather, they seem
to have been made specifically for burial. How these objects
served the dead in the afterlife remains a mystery and is
a reminder that there is still much to discover about these
ancient peoples and their art.
The diadem on page 13 would have been worn on the forehead
of a leader or other key figure as part of a headdress. The
combination of the three-dimensional face and surrounding
embossed linear decoration recalls the Calima pectoral, and
indeed this piece is in the same style. Once again, the standardized
face, already seen in the pectoral, appears in the
center of the composition. The background figure, formed by
the curvilinear contour lines, is a conventionalized bird flying
downward. The emphasis on the descending bird’s tail recalls
the importance and value of brightly colored tail feathers in
11
Approx.
1 7/8 × 1 7/8” diam.

12
15 1/2 × 8 1/2”

elite costume in Indigenous Colombia and throughout the
Americas. The diadem connects the resplendent, solar nature
of gold with the equally resplendent—and equally valued—
iridescent feathers, which were also associated with the sky.
The gold and feathers worn by the ruler were seen to physically
transform the human ruler into a flying being. Wearing golden
jewelry and feathers allowed the rulers to ascend to the sky
realm and interact with celestial powers. Often this interaction
was to maintain the balance and mutual respect between
humans and nature necessary for life to thrive.
Unlike much of the art that derives from Europe, Indigenous
Colombian art traditions do not focus on the beautiful propor-
tions or ideal facial features of the human figure. Indigenous
jewelry was intended not to represent or decorate the human
body but to transform it. This transformation inserted the
human more intimately into nature, as when the sun’s energy
was captured by an artist working in gold so that an Indigenous
ruler could become one with the sky animals (resplendent
birds) and with the power of the sun itself. The objects seen
here—and several others in the Glassell Collection—
celebrate the brilliance of fine goldwork while situating the
power of gold firmly in larger Indigenous ideas of humans and
their relation to nature.
S U R F A C I N G
13
10 1/4 × 9 1/8 × 3/4”

Model into Myth
BY JAMES CLIFTON
DIRECTOR, SARAH CAMPBELL BLAFFER FOUNDATION,
AND CURATOR OF RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE PAINTING
The Roman poet Ovid and other ancient writers told the story
of Marsyas, a satyr who was skinned alive by the god Apollo.
Having learned to play a wind instrument discarded by the
goddess Minerva, Marsyas foolishly challenged Apollo to a
musical contest and lost both the contest and his life. The
violent subject was a favorite among Renaissance artists.
Dirck van Baburen (1595–1624), one of the most prominent
painters in the Dutch city of Utrecht, depicted the subject at
nearly life-size in the early 1620s, either toward the end of his
long sojourn in Rome or soon after he returned to Utrecht.
In Van Baburen’s painting, Marsyas—human in form aside
from a single visible horn—lies supine on a stone block. He
screams as Apollo, his golden head wreathed with laurel of
Parnassus and his mantle “dipped in Tyrian dye,” as described
by Ovid, slices Marsyas’s shin with something akin to a scalpel
in his right hand, pulling the skin away with his left. In the background
at right, three figures—two visibly horned like Marsyas
and wearing ivy crowns—wail in dismay.
Van Baburen draws a clear distinction between the two main
figures. Apollo, seen in profile, virtually expressionless, stably
positioned, and tightly composed within a closed silhouette,
recalls classical relief sculpture and its Renaissance derivations.
Marsyas, conversely, lies precariously upside-down,
arms and legs akimbo, his face contorted. Though the story
does not call for Marsyas to be flayed upside-down, several
artists used the motif, which, as in other contexts, expresses
the utter helplessness of the victim. Many interpretations
of the myth and its representations depend on the contrast
between Apollo and Marsyas—for instance, between beauty
and ugliness, order and disorder, and wisdom and foolishness.
Van Baburen uses the subject as a demonstration of the
human anatomy and his ability to represent it. With a strong
play of light and shadow, typical of the Caravaggesque style
of the early 17th century, he sculptures the figures’ powerful
physiques, particularly their muscular shoulders. A further
characteristic of this style is a close observation of reality.
Marsyas, single horn notwithstanding, looks like a model in
the studio: a low posing platform has been transformed into a
block that has no function in the narrative, and a rope probably
used to suspend the model’s leg is here tied to a tree. Van
Baburen proclaims his imitative skill, even if it compromises
the narrative conventions of the story.
The artist’s artifice in this carefully composed and executed
painting turns the viewer’s attention to his skill and the interpretative
possibilities of the subject. Aristotle recognized the
pleasure to be had in looking at representations of things that
might be disagreeable in actuality, and a contemporary of Van
Baburen’s famously wrote about a painting of The Massacre of
the Innocents “that often horror goes with delight.” In drawing
attention to his artifice in this painting, Van Baburen elicits
responses that may equivocate between visceral horror and
critical appraisal.
O B J E C T L E S S O N
15
75 5/8 × 63”
In accordance with ancient and
Renaissance philosophy, Apollo’s
calm demeanor as he goes about
his grisly task is in contrast to
Marsyas’s passionate howl, just
as the rational is to the irrational,
and the human is to the bestial.
The V-shaped tan below Marsyas’s
throat, which follows the line of a
shirt, indicates that Van Baburen
painted the model as he must have
appeared in his studio, rather than
as a woodland creature accustomed
to frolicking naked in the sunshine,
as called for by the story.
The three figures reacting in horror
stand in for those Ovid said wept for
Marsyas: peasants, sylvan deities,
fauns, satyrs, and even the gods
on Olympus.
At the lower left, Apollo’s five-string
lira da braccio lies atop Marsyas’s
syrinx (panpipe), suggesting the
god’s victory in their musical contest.

A C R O S S T H E C O L L E C T I O N S
Go Figure
The Greek philosopher Aristotle believed “the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance
of things, but their inward significance.” For millennia, artists have aimed not only to capture the figure but
to infuse its representation with deeper meaning and purpose—whether to embody lived experience, to
uphold tradition, or to examine its magical quality. The works shown here—all drawn from the Museum’s
collection—comprise a cross-cultural snapshot of artists’ ever-evolving approach to and stylistic
treatment of the figure.
P O R T F O L I O
16
20 × 15 1/4 × 17 3/4”
460–450 BC
This monumental krater, an ancient
Greek vessel for diluting wine, depicts
several figures in composite engaged
in a dramatic battle scene. A rider on
a rearing mount fends off two soldiers,
called hoplites, who peer over their
decorated shields. One of the foot
soldiers, wearing a Thracian helmet
and a star-studded tunic, attempts a
strike with his spear. Kraters were an
important part of symposia, all-male
banquets that featured wine, food,
games, and entertainment. Such
combat scenes were inspired by
The Iliad, the poet Homer’s great
war epic from the 7th century BC.

Modeled c. 1910
The celebrated French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) is
known for creating extraordinarily expressive figures and brilliantly
exploiting materials and surfaces while conveying the physical,
emotional, and even psychological aspects of his subjects.
Throughout his career, Rodin often reused and reconceived certain
figures for other contexts, including this half-length nude woman,
which derives from his monumental Gates of Hell. Based on Dante’s
Inferno, Rodin’s Gates of Hell, which comprises more than 200
figures, occupied the sculptor for almost 40 years.
17
31 × 23 × 15”

18
7 × 4 1/2 × 1 3/4”
4 1/2 × 5 × 1 3/8”
1500–500 BC
This Japanese dogu, or clay figurine, depicts a
heavily decorated person. The body shape is typical
of the Final Jomon period (c. 1000–300 BC), but
the headdress is markedly different—it consists of a
circular headpiece topped by rectangular protrusions.
The purpose of dogu remains a mystery: nearly all
surviving examples are broken at the arms, legs,
or waist, leading scholars to believe they were
deliberately fragmented, possibly to heal the sick by
releasing bad spirits. They also speculate that these
figures are wearing masks—possibly representing the
transformation of the human into the superhuman.
11th century
Figural imagery is widely appreciated in the secular sphere of
Islamic art. This handle or doorknocker fashioned in the form
of a man was most likely placed in a secular setting like a private
home. On the man’s clothes, gold and silver inlay create delicate
knot-scroll motifs characterized by endless loops and dizzying
geometric patterns.

Late 19th–early 20th century
The Kota peoples used mbulu ngulu, reliquary guardian figures
such as this one, to protect and mark the bones, especially the
skull, of revered ancestors. The bones were placed with other
relics of the deceased in a bark box or basket, with the figure
atop. The elegantly designed visage features protruding circular
eyes and a triangular nose, flanked by thin rays of metal. Such
figures are iconic in African art, with the Kota examples being
unique with the combination of wood and hammered metal.
P O R T F O L I O
19
24 × 10 1/8 × 2 1/2”

Second half of the 13th century
The crowned figure in this Iranian ewer
holds a double-spouted water-skin from
which the vessel’s contents would have been
poured. The figurine’s dress is decorated
with the renowned and enduring triple-dot
motif. Together with the crown, these details
indicate that this represents a royal figure.
P O R T F O L I O
20
10 1/4 × 5 1/4 × 4 5/8”

21
11 × 4 1/2 × 4 1/2”
c. 1849–52
This jaunty figure sports a long cloak that cleverly adapted the human form to the requisite
bottle shape, while the top hat accommodated the cork. Production of Rockingham pottery,
with its characteristic brown glaze, began in the United States in the 1830s and 1840s. Daniel
Greatbach, whose grandfather had worked as a modeler for Josiah Wedgwood, worked first
in New Jersey before moving to Bennington, Vermont. Among the objects he created there
was this bottle modeled as a man. The form continued an English tradition of figural bottles
for gin that local bars distributed to their clients.

22
Sheet: 18 × 14”
1911
A protégé of Gustav Klimt, the Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele (1890–1918)
was known for his graphic style and embrace of figural distortion. His erotic and
deeply psychological portraits possess an idiosyncratic line and a selective use of
color. In this watercolor, Girl in Red Robe and Black Stockings, Schiele portrays a
provocatively dressed woman in an accentuated, twisting pose, isolated on a sheet
of paper. Through the artist’s detached approach, she appears as an object for
formal analysis. Yet Schiele’s artistic process was an intimate experience—to create
his loose, fluid figurative sketches, the artist used a continuous drawing technique
that required constant eye contact with his model.

P O R T F O L I O
23
14 1/4 × 15 × 13 3/4”
1975
The American ceramic artist Viola Frey (1933–2004) used colors and overglazes
to give her dynamic figures an “alertness and vividness and to unfreeze them.” Her
sculpture Esther Williams and Deborah Kerr at Pool is alive with painterly color,
emotion, dappled light, and naturalism. Its subject matter can be traced to Frey’s
childhood memories, but despite her admiration for these stars of Hollywood’s
golden age, Frey renders them as real people, rather than as glamorous film icons.
Their languid and abstracted limbs and simplistic faces deliberately project traces
of the artist’s hand.

2014
Ron Mueck (born 1958) draws upon memories,
reveries, and everyday experience as he
approaches his subjects with extraordinary
empathy. Typically spending more than a
year conceiving and making each figure,
Mueck captures every physical detail with
an astonishing degree of verisimilitude.
This naturalism, however, is undercut by
his calculated play with scale. Woman with
Shopping, which stands only 44 inches high,
was inspired by a woman and child Mueck
spotted on a London street; he meticulously
translated this fleeting encounter into a
compassionate testament to new motherhood,
and the loving care it demands.
P O R T F O L I O
24
44 1/2 × 18 1/8 × 11 7/8”

25
96 × 83 3/4 × 1/4”
1995
Jack Whitten (1939–2018) was among the vanguard of New York artists whose innovative
approach to painting in the 1970s and 1980s emphasized the physicality of their canvases and
materials. Whitten’s work stands out among his contemporaries, however, as he reconciled
his formal explorations with nuanced meditations on history, science, and the nature of
Black identity. Natural Selection features his autographic mosaic technique, with handmade
blocks of acrylic paint creating a shimmering grid. At the same time, the shadowy figure gives
the composition an emotive anchor, further buttressed by the title, which refers to Charles
Darwin’s description of the struggle for existence.

Philip Guston Now, a retrospective featuring more than 110 paintings and drawings, will be on view from
October 23, 2022, through January 16, 2023, in the Brown Foundation, Inc., Galleries of the Audrey Jones Beck Building.
Philip Guston:
Living in a
World Museum
BY ALISON DE LIMA GREENE
THE ISABEL BROWN WILSON CURATOR, MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART
Over a career that spanned five decades, Philip Guston
consistently explored different modes of representation, at
times emulating the high polish of Renaissance art, at times
subsuming his subjects in a dense web of brushstrokes, and
at times describing the world around him with the anarchic
spirit of George Herriman’s Krazy Kat comics. Coming of age
in Los Angeles, Guston (1913–1980) eschewed traditional
fine-arts training, and by the early 1930s his political stance
had been honed by news of the Scottsboro trials, brutal
encounters with the Los Angeles Police Department’s
notorious Red Squad, and Klan rallies. His first ambitious
paintings—including a monumental mural created with
Reuben Kadish in Morelia during the winter of 1934—
drew on these experiences to confront racism and religious
intolerance.
Throughout the 1930s Guston was also honing his own
identity. His parents were among the wave of Jewish emigrants
who fled the pogroms that swept Central Europe at the turn
of the 20th century, landing first in Montreal before making
their way to Southern California in 1922. The family was
broken apart by the suicide of Guston’s father, Leib Goldstein,
the following year and by the accidental death of Guston’s
brother Nat a decade later. In 1936 the aspiring artist cast off
his birth name, changing Phillip Goldstein to Philip Guston, and
left for New York, where he began a new life with the painter
and poet Musa McKim.
New York introduced Guston to a vital community of artists.
Jackson Pollock, a friend from high school, first made him
welcome, and Guston found employment through the Federal
Art Project of the Works Progress Administration. He undertook
a number of public commissions, including Work and Play
for the Queensbridge Houses Community Center (1939–41);
his painting Gladiators (1940, opposite) reprised a segment
from that mural. Compressing the composition to its most
essential features, Guston adroitly balanced his love of such
paintings as Paolo Uccello’s Battle of San Romano (c. 1435–
60) with his assimilation of Stuart Davis’s suave Modernism.
The painting can also be understood as a metaphor for the
larger conflict that was rapidly consuming Europe: four boys
are locked in a tight Mobius strip of grasping hands, thrusts,
and blows—their faces concealed, their weapons scavenged
from the streets.
Guston spent much of the 1940s teaching in Midwestern
universities. Haunted by news of the Holocaust, he grappled
with how to resolve his commitment to meaningful subject
matter while also responding to new currents in American
painting. After a 1948–49 sabbatical at the American
Academy in Rome, he returned to New York and shifted
into abstraction, explaining, “I wanted to come to a canvas
and see what would happen if I put on paint.” However, the
nonobjective, painterly compositions that placed him at the
center of the Abstract Expressionist vanguard in the early
1950s gave way to paintings imbued with hints of more
concrete subject matter. For example, Painter (1959, see
page 28) is characterized by the lush palette and gestural
layering typical of his abstractions. At the center of the composition,
a triangular scaffold suggests the outline of an easel,
or even a Klansman’s silhouette harking back to Guston’s
first paintings, while the red form at center top echoes the
hood of one of his 1940s gladiators.
P R O F I L E
27
24 1/2 × 28 1/8”

28
65 × 69”
In a 1966 conversation with the art critic Harold Rosenberg,
Guston discussed the dilemmas posed by representation: “To
preconceive an image . . . and then go ahead and paint it is an
impossibility for me.” He continued: “The trouble with recognizable
art is that it excludes too much. I want my work to include
more. And ‘more’ also comprises one’s doubts about the
object, plus the problem, the dilemma, of recognizing it.”
Guston found his way forward in 1967 and 1968 through
drawings and small paintings that reconciled his distrust
of preconceived imagery with his desire “to include more.”
In 1969 he produced one of the most decisively shocking
statements of his career, The Studio, presenting the painter as
a hooded Klansman framed by a dramatic red curtain as he
completes a self-portrait.
Both the meaning and intent of The Studio, as well as
Guston’s other paintings showing Klansmen as mobsters
trolling the city or as shadowy figures populating schoolroom
blackboards, have been hotly debated in recent years. Guston
himself declared that the work came about in response
to the Vietnam War and the fraught political climate of the
late 1960s. However, when these works were first shown at
Marlborough Gallery in 1970, remarkably little discussion was
devoted to the implications of this charged imagery—instead,
most critics responded to the manner of Guston’s painting,
seeing in his work a cartoonish betrayal of the ideals associated
with Abstract Expressionism. What contemporary viewers
failed to see was that The Studio was both a parable about
the impossibility of painting and a rare self-portrait, probing the
moral stance of the artist in a time of crisis.

P R O F I L E
29
69 × 78 1/2”
Guston had created relatively few self-portraits up to this
stage in his career. He soon cast aside his hooded
personages, instead centering himself, his wife, and his
immediate surroundings in paintings that confronted mortality
and memory. “I found when I was doing these pictures that
I had made a circle,” he stated in 1974. “All my older interests
in painting, the children fighting with garbage cans . . . came
flooding back on me.” Legend (1977, above) encapsulates this
flood of memories as Guston conjures up an uneasy dreamscape.
Weapons seen in his first paintings and in Gladiators
reappear. A flying brick and Officer Pupp’s gloved fist refers
to the Krazy Kat comics of Guston’s youth and to America’s
troubled history of police brutality. A can spewing beer and
the cigarettes and liquor bottle that litter the floor attest
to the bad habits that had undone Guston’s health. A horse
cantering off in the background and an open book allude
to Isaac Babel’s 1926 Red Calvary, a wartime memoir and
testament to anti-Semitism that had moved Guston
profoundly. This cascade of associations has no fixed meaning,
rather it should be understood as the deeply humanistic
moral stance that threaded through Guston’s life and
animated his paintings across many stylistic changes.
In 1966 Guston commented, “I should like to paint like a
man who has never seen a painting, but this man, myself,
lives in a world museum,” a statement that he repeated toward
the end of his life. For Guston the “world museum” ultimately
encompassed more than the world of art. Living vividly in the
present, responding to the most urgent concerns of his generation,
Guston gazed unblinkingly at difficult truths, wrestling
with tragedy and doubt with self-knowledge and compassion.

Sea
Change
As the 19th century gave way to the 20th century, economic
prosperity in the United States allowed for more free time
for the working classes. Leisure was seen as a benefit to the
education, health, and productivity of society, and the beach
was a place where the visual clues of class distinction were
minimized. It was also a place that attracted artists in search of
subjects and new ways to depict them.
Edward Henry Potthast (1857–1927) was one of those artists.
Although originally from Ohio, he had studied art in Europe,
where he absorbed the style of the Impressionists. Between
1889 and 1891, Potthast exhibited works at the Paris Salon, but
ultimately returned to Cincinnati. Five years later, he moved
to New York City, where he found work as an illustrator for
Harper’s and other magazines. Finding success later in life,
Potthast spent his last decades dedicated solely to painting,
and became known for his sun-dappled depictions of outdoor
activities. It was during this time that he discovered one of his
most popular subjects: the beach. In many ways, he combined
the loose brushwork of the American Impressionists with the
bold colors and interest in the crowd, regardless of class, of
the Ashcan School painters. Like those artists, Potthast
focused less on the specifics of his subjects and instead
celebrated the relaxed, happy mood of Americans at leisure.
His Swimming in the Surf (c. 1910) presents a moment from a
perfect day at the beach.
I N T H E M I X
31
20 1/4 × 24”

I N T H E M I X
32
Sheet:
11 × 15 1/4”
Like Potthast, the American artist Maurice Prendergast
(1858–1924) was also drawn to scenes of leisure at the shoreline.
Although born in Newfoundland, he moved with his family
to Boston and later studied in Paris from 1891 to 1895. While
there, he assimilated many Post-Impressionist techniques and
developed his own decorative style using patches of color.
After returning to Boston, he produced a series of enchanting
watercolors along the seashore. Prendergast returned often to
drawing the picturesque town of Marblehead and its surroundings,
observing people on holiday. This watercolor, Marblehead
Rocks, Massachusetts (c. 1905–8), depicts a procession of
figures strolling along the rocky shore while boats sail in the
distance. It was displayed in the first exhibition of The Eight—a
group that championed a progressive approach to art—in
1908 and in the prestigious Armory Show in New York in 1913.
Though these two works by Potthast and Prendergast
portray similar scenes, they differ in their stylistic approach.
Whereas Potthast’s loosely brushed figures are a bit more
defined, those by Prendergast appear as a mosaic of bright
pools of color. Together, they demonstrate how American
artists applied what they had learned from their European
counterparts to create their own individualized styles. These
two works are recent gifts to the Museum from the collection
of Nancy Hart Glanville Jewell, a preeminent collector of
American art and a longtime supporter of the Museum. The
addition of the Glanville Collection uniquely expands the
Museum’s permanent collection of American art.

34
Perfect Form
Buddhist sculptors imagined Buddha’s
perfected body as an amalgamation
of the loveliest and most powerful forms
from nature.

Works from the Xuzhou Collection, never before presented in a public museum, are currently on long-term loan
to the Museum and displayed in the Arts of Asia Galleries in the Caroline Wiess Law Building.
Embodying
Buddhist Ideas
BY HAO SHENG
CONSULTING CURATOR OF ASIAN ART
“ It was Buddhism, rather than the western canon,
which gave me the idea of the abstract body. It
gave me the idea that you can make sculpture
about being rather than doing; that you can make
sculpture that becomes a reflexive instrument
rather than existing as a freeze-form in a narrative.”
—Antony Gormley (British sculptor, born 1950)
I N T H E M I X
35
All Ears
The only traces of the Buddha’s
early life of princely luxury are
the long earlobes that were once
weighted down by fine jewelry.
Buddhism holds its own teaching as a means, not an end. In an
often-evoked metaphor, a raft ferries seekers over the river of
ignorance. The idea that Buddhist art serves as this vehicle for
enlightenment has been instrumental in the creation of sculptures
such as these in the Xuzhou Collection. For an informed
reader of Buddhist images, the seemingly simple, formulaic
Buddha figures manifest layers of ideas. They signal divine
Buddhahood, recount his earthly biography, demonstrate the
practice of the Middle Path, and embody supreme wisdom.
A Buddha figure bears marks of a “Great Being.” The ushnisha,
a prominent bump above his head, is a symbol of expanded
wisdom attained at enlightenment. The dot on his forehead
between the eyes, called urna, reveals penetrating visions
beyond our mundane world. The figures are often burnished
in gold to capture radiant skin that is said to shine light from
each pore. Encouraged by sacred texts, sculptors imagined the
Buddha’s physical perfection by bringing together the loveliest
and most powerful forms in nature. His broad shoulders and
tapered waist are likened to a lion’s torso, his supple arms to
elephant trunks, his half-closed eyelids to the curvy petals of
a lotus flower, and the folds of his robe to calm ripples over a
deep pool (see opposite page).
Height: 15 3/4”
Height: 18 1/8”

I N T H E M I X
36
Height: 34 7/8”
Down to Earth
In a battle against fear and desire, the triumphant
Buddha touched the ground and invited Earth to
witness his enlightenment.

If marks of perfection confirm Buddhahood, earthly traits on
the same figure recount his life’s journey for enlightenment. He
was born Siddhartha Gautama in 6th century BC, regent to a
north Indian kingdom at the foothills of the Himalayans. The
prince enjoyed a life of luxury at the palace, was married, and
wore fine garments and gold jewelry. A Buddha figure always
acknowledges this early life with extended ear lobes, which
were once weighted to the shoulders under heavy earrings (see
page 35).
Such extreme care was taken to shield him from life’s sufferings
that the prince did not encounter sickness, old age,
and death until he was 29 years old. Those “Four Encounters,”
the fourth being a wandering ascetic, launched his quest for
enlightenment, in search of an end to the human predicament
of suffering. Having left the palace in the cover of night,
he removed his jewels and cut off his hair in a symbolic act of
renouncing earthly possessions and familial ties. The remaining
tufts on his shorn head curled neatly in the characteristic
“snail shells” pattern (see page 34). In place of courtly attire,
Siddhartha wore two rectangular cloths wrapped around his
body, typically with one shoulder bare. Buddhist nuns and
monks to this day, as they set intentions to imitate the Buddha,
undergo ritual head shaving, don versions of Buddha’s simple
garment, and renounce personal wealth.
Siddhartha lived the life of a wandering ascetic for six years.
Having exhausted the practice of extreme austerity, he arrived
at the Middle Path, rejecting both sensual indulgences and
debilitating self-denial. He revived his emaciated body with a
bowl of rice pudding, and then sat down to meditate under
a sacred tree in Bodh Gaya. There, he reached a profound
insight: the sufferings of life are caused by egocentric desires,
and the path to salvation consists of shedding those delusions.
By awakening to the true nature of reality, he attained liberation
from the endless cycle of rebirth. He became the “Awakened
One,” the Buddha.
Some of the most dynamic Buddhist sculptures ever created
depict this moment (as seen at left). Under the boughs of the
Bodhi tree, the Buddha sits cross-legged in deep concentration.
He is surrounded by trouble. The demon Mara, standing
with a long bow, first threatens the Buddha with fear, his
grotesque soldiers hurling weapons; then Mara tempts him
with desire, as personified by his alluring daughters. Remaining
immovable, the Buddha extends his right hand to touch the
ground, asking Earth to witness his awakening.
The 6th-century Indian sculptor dramatized the moment
with visual contrasts. The Buddha is composed of pure
shapes. The Diamond Seat (a rectangle) supports the seated
Buddha (a triangle), topped with a halo (a perfect circle). In
contrast, Mara and his cohorts are a mangled mass, all curves
and twisted lumps. The smooth and unadorned Buddha, as
if swelling from a breath within, appears luminous against
the pitted and shadowed frame of figures.
The Buddha is the center of the narrative, yet he exists
beyond the fray, being at once of the moment and timeless.
In fact, when extracted from the scene of the battle,
the Earth-Touching Buddha (below) is one of the most
repeated icons in Buddhism. His immobile pose and blissful
introspection model a state of being: by mastering the mind,
one may defeat the inner demons of fear and desire. The
Buddha figure thus embodies his teaching.
The sculptures from the Xuzhou Collection (pronounced
“shoe-joe”) present extraordinary range and unparalleled
quality. The collector, himself a student of Buddhism, named
the collection in Chinese, meaning “Empty Boat”—a reminder
that the sculptures themselves manifest Buddhist teaching.
Looking beyond the apparent material splendor, viewers are
alerted to the sculptures’ potential to teach and to transform.
37
Height: 20 1/2”
Icon of Enlightenment
Abstracted from the scene of the battle, the Earth-Touching Buddha
remains one of the most iconic images in Buddhism, offering reassurance
in the human struggle against fear and desire.

S E R I E S
A Fiery
Figure
BY LISA VOLPE
ASSOCIATE CURATOR, PHOTOGRAPHY
When Stokely Carmichael took the stage at the March
Against Fear in Greenwood, Mississippi, on June 16, 1966, the
crowd greeted him with a massive roar. Only weeks before,
Carmichael was elected chairman of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to help transition the organization
into a new phase of activism: to create and leverage
the political power of a Black voter base and, in doing so, foster
a greater sense of self-determination and pride. With the
energy of his audience reverberating below, Carmichael
launched the first-ever call for Black Power: “The only way
we gonna stop them white men from whuppin’ us is to take
over. We’ve been saying freedom for six years and we ain’t got
nothin’. What we gonna start saying now is Black Power!”
As the cry of Black Power echoed through the Mississippi
night, and soon around the world, the phrase—and its
messenger—became a lightning rod of controversy. News
organizations began dissecting and defining the term for
their readership, doing so with various levels of prejudice
38

The works shown here are among those featured in Gordon Parks: Stokely Carmichael and Black Power,
on view October 16, 2022, through January 16, 2023, in the Millennium Gallery of the Audrey Jones Beck Building.
and fear. With no ready images of this foreign ideology, media
outlets quickly latched onto photos of Carmichael to represent
Black Power, casting him as a figure of racial violence and
distorting his character and SNCC’s message. Yet, looking
back on this period, Carmichael’s autobiography lists one
published work that was a fair and “sensitive portrait”—
the photographer Gordon Parks’s “Whip of Black Power,” a text
and photo-essay published in Life magazine on May 19, 1967.
Gordon Parks (1912–2006) was one of the 20th century’s
preeminent photographers. He created groundbreaking work
for the Farm Security Administration and magazines such as
Vogue and Life, where he was the first Black staff photographer.
Beyond his work in photography, Parks was a respected film
director, composer, memoirist, novelist, and poet who left
behind an exceptional body of work. In this photo-essay, Parks
details his firsthand experience traveling with Carmichael off
and on from fall 1966 to spring 1967, capturing the activist in
meetings, at lectures, and giving speeches, as well as at more
personal life events, such as his sister’s wedding. The artist’s
smart and eye-catching images relay his perspective by drawing
on visual tropes and harnessing connotation, presenting
Carmichael as a changeable and complex figure, his character
drawn as one of nuance and multidimensionality. Taken as a
whole, “Whip of Black Power” represents Parks’s visual translation
of Black Power and its root of self-love.
The tide of mass-media imagery was irrevocably turning
by the time Carmichael was elected chairman of the SNCC in
May 1966. Images of passive protests were replaced by Black
participants engaged in an active resistance against oppression.
This change shattered the familiar dynamic. “With the
change of lead visuals came a change of national sentiment.
And with the pronouncement of black power, general sympathy
gave way to a barrage of baffled questions belying white
fear,” author Leigh Raiford summarized. Indeed, the reports
and images that emerged following Carmichael’s speech at
the March Against Fear painted a distinctly ominous message.
In one such photo taken by Bob Fitch, Carmichael appears
as a haunting figure, unnaturally lit against the dark night and
gesturing aggressively at the crowd (see opposite page).
The image caption is equally telling, emphasizing anger and
danger: “At a night rally in Broad Street Park, a furious Stokely
Carmichael delivers his famous ‘Black Power’ speech.”
As a denigrated sign of Black radicalism, Carmichael’s
portrait became a one-dimensional, myopic symbol of racialized
fear. Parks’s writing and photographs, however, stand in
direct opposition to that prejudiced point of view. Drawing on
photographic compositions or broad visual motifs familiar
to Life’s readers, Parks forced a recognition of Carmichael’s
full humanity within the pages of the magazine. In doing so, he
created a new, positive image of Carmichael’s character and
Black Power.
Parks’s first image commands the page (see above). It
shows Carmichael speaking into a microphone, his right hand
slashing the air, his left curled into a fist. His conservative suit
is fitted, though he has loosened his tie and unbuttoned the
top button of his white dress shirt. He appears both serious
and charismatic, articulate and agile. The crowd Carmichael
addresses in Watts, California, is barely visible; instead, the
cropped image focuses the eye on this mesmerizing and
monumental man. Parks’s text emphasizes the energy of the
moment, describing the amped-up crowd, bodyguards, and
Carmichael, the magnetic force at the center of it all. “This
crowd was made for Stokely Carmichael,” Parks wrote. The
39
20 × 24”

40
20 × 16”
photograph too celebrates Carmichael’s Black leadership
by drawing visual comparisons to Malcolm X. In 1963 Parks
had photographed the venerated Black leader, dressed in a
conservative dark suit and white shirt, from a low vantage point
as his hand slashed through the air. Here, three years later,
Parks photographed Carmichael in the same way, making an
unmistakable connection between the two figures through the
visual repetition of gesture, camera angle, and details.
In the final photograph of Parks’s profile (at left), a portrait of
Malcolm X appears on the wall above Carmichael’s desk,
among other photos and flyers. Contact sheets reveal that
Parks framed and reframed this scene seven times. Despite
moving closer to Carmichael in subsequent frames, Parks
carefully included the portrait in each one. He clearly
aimed to make the connection between Carmichael and
Malcolm X, casting the young SNCC chair as the recipient
of the elder leader’s legacy. The complex image also guides
readers to a more holistic and well-defined sense of
Carmichael’s motivations and emphasizes his fidelity to the
cause: the view of the slumped leader with the symbols of his
Black Power above him recalls scenes of religious pilgrims at
an altar, deep in thought and prayer.
In another image published in the Life profile, Carmichael
poses on a rock-covered road in Lowndes County, Georgia.
Parks’s contact sheets reveal that this was an image he was
intent on creating, capturing Carmichael in various positions
along the road at all times of the day (see opposite page).
However, the largest number of frames feature Carmichael
walking at daybreak. These unpublished images bear a striking
resemblance to the opening photograph of the famous Life
essay “Country Doctor,” from September 20, 1948, by the
photojournalist W. Eugene Smith. Smith’s essay depicts
the modest and tireless Dr. Ernest Ceriani laboring for his
patients in rural Colorado. In that first image, the doctor
traverses the countryside, determined to help his patients.
Parks later claimed “Country Doctor” as one of his favorite
Life essays. His contact sheets of Carmichael’s stroll reveal
that the artist was intentionally referencing Smith’s classic
image, echoing its temperamental skies, rural setting, and lone
figure. By doing so, Parks framed the activist as a selfless local
hero, working for the benefit of others.

S E R I E S
While Parks coded Carmichael’s character through visual
tropes, his first draft of text for the profile also utilized written
analogy. He began:
Stokely Carmichael stood at center stage. Beneath
an angry sky, with the majestic United Nations building
towering behind him; with hundreds of thousands of
peace marchers standing ankle-to-ankle in the wide
plaza cheering him on, he decided to go for broke.
“Vietnam: Hell no! We won’t go!” . . . Then a more familiar
cry, hostile, unrelenting and razor-sharp, knifed through
the chant. “Black Power! Black Power! We want Black
Power!” A master stroke. He had two of his slogans
going at once. He was on fire, spitting his heat into
the crowd.
Parks would consistently refer to Carmichael utilizing various
fiery metaphors in his later texts, recalling him “breathing
fire” in his speeches, as part of a generation of “fiery young
insurgents,” and, despite his later resignation as SNCC’s chairman,
as a catalyst for change, predicting, “across the nation
the fires would burn on.”
Gordon Parks understood that visibility mattered. For “Whip
of Black Power,” Parks depicts Carmichael in a holistic and
humanizing manner. A fiery, passionate, and dutiful figure filled
with love for his community, Carmichael is the picture of new
Black leadership and a corpus for Black reflection. The creation
of these images of fellowship and self-determination—Parks’s
weapons waged in the battle against erasure and caricature—
was the embodiment of Black Power and an act of fiery love.
This text has been excerpted and adapted from the exhibition
catalogue Gordon Parks: Stokely Carmichael and Black
Power, published by Steidl in association with the Gordon Parks
Foundation and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
41
20 × 24”

Self-Reflection
U P C L O S E
42
107 × 178 × 394”
Referred to as an “architect of uncertainty,” the Argentinean artist Leandro Erlich (born
1973) constructs visual paradoxes and optical illusions that force viewers to question
their perceptions and understanding of reality, and to see new possibilities in their
surroundings.
“By design, there is no complete work without the audience,” Erlich says. “The audience
temporarily becomes an element of the work itself. Their individual participation
and experience is a level of involvement that makes them essential to the process. And
of course, the ultimate meaning they create and assign is also imperative.”
In Le cabinet du psy (2005), Erlich immerses viewers in an environment composed
of two rooms separated by glass. One of the rooms, which is inaccessible to visitors, is
a painstakingly detailed re-creation of a psychoanalyst’s office, which includes, among
other details, a couch or chaise upon which the potential patient can recline, tapestries,
antique psychology and psychiatry books, assorted knickknacks and sculptural decorations,
and a university diploma.
Viewers are invited to enter the second room, which is essentially a black box with
rudimentary “seats” made up of smaller black boxes arranged to mimic the configuration
of furniture in the adjacent room. A piece of glass separates the two spaces.
Through the reflective qualities of the glass, visitors see their own images projected into
the psychoanalyst’s office, yet they cannot physically enter this area. This produces a
phantasmic, bifurcated reality in which participants experience the sensation of being
in two places at the same time, or at least of feeling their bodies in one space while
seeing them projected in another.
The viewer is invited to recline, sit, or stand in the position of the “doctor,” the “patient,”
or even the uninvited visitor, a voyeur who would not normally be included in the
intimate sessions that take place in such spaces. The context of the psychoanalyst’s
office seems particularly appropriate for a work that hinges on viewers psychologically
getting outside of their physical selves, even for a moment. Given the focus of psychoanalysis
on exploring the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious, the
disembodied experience encouraged by Le cabinet du psy is an ideal condition for
exploring elements of the unconscious.

Leandro Erlich: Seeing Is Not Believing will be on view through September 5, 2022, in Cullinan Hall and the
North Foyer of the Caroline Wiess Law Building. In addition to Le cabinet du psy (2005), the exhibition will also include
Erlich’s Bâtiment (2004), in which a mirror reflects viewers onto the facade of a four-story building.
43
A. The psychoanalyst’s couch has long been
a signifier of the psychiatrist’s office and
has its roots in Sigmund Freud’s practice,
in which he would ask patients to lie
down in order to create a feeling of ease
or relaxation, encouraging them to be
less guarded and more open.
B. The worn books on the shelves are
related to the topics of psychology
and psychoanalysis, and their authors
include giants in the field like Sigmund
Freud and Jacques Lacan.
C. A university diploma on the wall
certifies that the viewer (or patient)
has entered the office of a welleducated
and well-credentialed
psychoanalyst.

Q&A
with
F I V E M I N U T E S W I T H
Leandro
Erlich
44
The exhibition Leandro Erlich: Seeing Is
Not Believing ( June 29–September 5, 2022)
is a homecoming of sorts for the Argentinean
artist Leandro Erlich. During his early
career, he was a Core Fellow (1997–99) at
the Museum’s Glassell School of Art, and he
subsequently went on to earn international
acclaim for riveting and thought-provoking
installations that challenge viewers to
question what they think they see and know
about themselves and the world around
them. In this interview, Erlich reflects on
the issues and ideas that drive him to create
extraordinary works where the viewer
participates as a “co-creator.”

Le cabinet du psy (2005) immerses the viewer in a
psychoanalyst’s office. Can you talk about your interest
in psychoanalysis, how it developed, and how it informs
your work?
As someone who grew up in Buenos Aires, which has one of
the highest concentrations of psychoanalysts in the world,
it’s unavoidable. Our daily discourse is full of the language of
psychoanalysis, as are people’s daily lives. French structuralists
have also been very important for Argentine intellectuals, so we
are always on the divan in one way or another. My work is often
associated with the Freudian concept of the uncanny, which
is certainly present in this piece, where we are “neither here
nor there,” where the ordinary has become suddenly and
mysteriously strange.
Does a variation of voyeurism—or a kind of autovoyeurism,
if you will—play a role in Le cabinet du psy?
At first glance, viewers seem to be offered an opportunity
to peek in on a private space, one where theoretically
the unconscious will also be on “display” through the
process of psychoanalysis, which could add another level
of intimacy to the revelation; however, instead of looking
upon the bodies and psyches of others, viewers are
ultimately “spying” on themselves.
First off, there are certain spaces that have a kind of charge,
and the psychoanalyst’s office is one of them; it’s a very private
place, a kind of inner sanctum. There is a thrill to this private
view, but we end up looking at our own projected images,
though we are only half there, like ghosts. This is where my
interest really lies, the moment when we know where we are
physically, and yet we seem to be somewhere else. The mind
understands the process, and yet it’s very confusing. Not
unlike the kind of projection we experience in our relationships
with other people—and with ourselves.
You often use mirrors and glass to play with perception, to
create illusions, and to destabilize. In Le cabinet du psy, the
glass and mirrors may even facilitate a temporary feeling
of disembodiedness, where viewers see themselves in
one space but physically feel themselves in another.
When and why did you first start using mirrors and glass
in your work, and how has your understanding of these
materials transformed over the years?
Reflection—or the absence thereof—has always been an
important tool for me. One of my first installations was El
Living (Living Room) (1998), which uses both mirrors and
a duplicate space to play with the expectations baked into
our perception. What you mention here is a key interest
of mine: What happens when we know something to be true
(mirrors reflect our image, boats float in water, walls are solid),
but our experience tells us something else? In that moment of
confusion, the world becomes new again and the ordinary is
suddenly a mystery.
In Bâtiment (2004), which will also be on display at the
Museum, you similarly use mirrors, this time to achieve
the gravity-defying illusion that viewers are hanging
off the elevation of a four-story building. Can you talk
about the role that the feeling of destabilization—
both visual and physical—plays in this work and in your
practice in general?
We believe, in general, that we are on the receiving end of
experience. The world is a certain way, and we interact with
that certainty. An installation like Bâtiment changes the rules
and allows us to happen to the world. We are no longer on the
receiving end. This experience has an obviously playful quality,
but I’m very interested in the spectator as co-creator—not
to mention the role that smartphone cameras play in the
reproduction of my work, something that I never considered
but that has become a creative force. I was amazed when
I discovered what was happening with my work on Instagram,
for example, and how far people have gone with their own
creativity—which is really gratifying. But none of that would
happen without that moment of destabilization or confusion
or surprise. Reality opens up, suddenly, and we jump in.
Tell us a little about the issues and themes that are occupying
your thoughts currently. What can we expect from
Leandro Erlich next?
I have become increasingly focused on our relationship to the
earth, thinking about the human imprint of the Anthropocene
and the way we distinguish between “organic” and “artificial” in
a way not unlike our distinction between “real” and “imaginary.”
Recent works like Order of Importance (2019) and Concrete
Coral (2021–22) address our impact on the planet as creators
in a world that bears our stamp. I also have an upcoming
retrospective at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). It’s
very significant for me to show my work again in Houston, a
place that was seminal for me as an artist and has made so
many things possible.
45

E X H I B I T I O N F U N D E R S
46
Alberto Giacometti:
Toward the Ultimate Figure
This exhibition is co-organized by the Fondation Giacometti
in Paris and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Generous support provided by:
Jerold B. Katz Foundation
Carol and Mike Linn
Sara Dodd and Will Denton
Artists in Motion:
Modern Masterpieces from
the Pearlman Foundation
This exhibition is organized by the Princeton University
Art Museum in collaboration with the Henry and
Rose Pearlman Foundation.
Golden Worlds: The Portable
Universe of Indigenous Colombia
This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Museo
del Oro y Unidad de Artes y Otras Colecciones-Banco de la
República, Colombia.
This project is supported in part by the National Endowment
for the Arts.
Leandro Erlich:
Seeing Is Not Believing
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Major support is provided by:
Leslie and Brad Bucher
Generous support is provided by:
Baker McKenzie
Silvia Salle and Peter T. Wood
Philip Guston Now
The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art,
Washington; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Tate Modern,
London; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Major support for the international tour of the exhibition
is provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Major support provided by:
Bobbie Nau
Generous support provided by:
Cecily E. Horton
PHILLIPS
Beth Robertson
Generous support is provided by:
The Favrot Fund
Gordon Parks:
Stokely Carmichael and Black Power
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
in collaboration with the Gordon Parks Foundation.
Generous support provided by:
The Anne Levy Charitable Trust
Dr. Ruth Simmons
Simin and Gaurdie Banister
DIR Inc./Drs. Russell H. and Rosalind C. Jackson
Drs. Jakeen and Garfield Johnson
All exhibition funders listed are as of printing deadline.

C R E D I T S
The Figure
PAGE 1
Alberto Giacometti, Grande femme debout I (Large
Standing Woman I), 1960, bronze, the Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by the Brown
Foundation Accessions Endowment Fund, 86.397.
© Alberto Giacometti Estate / VAGA at Artists Rights
Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris
Welcome
PAGE 2
© Richard Barne
A Figure Revisited
PAGE 3
Henri Matisse, Back I–IV, 1909–c. 1930, bronze, the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase
funded by Mr. and Mrs. Theodore N. Law in memory of
Mr. and Mrs. Harry C. Wiess; Mr. and Mrs. Gus Wortham;
the Cullen Foundation in memory of Hugh Roy and Lillie
Cullen; and The Brown Foundation, Inc. in memory of
Mr. and Mrs. Herman Brown, 80.68–80.71. © Succession
H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Toward the Ultimate Figure
PAGE 4
Yousuf Karsh, Alberto Giacometti, 1965, printed 1991,
gelatin silver print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
gift of Estrellita Karsh in honor of Dr. Malcolm Daniel
and in memory of Yousuf Karsh, 2014.1031.3. © Estate
of Yousuf Karsh
PAGE 5
Alberto Giacometti, Femme debout (Standing Woman;
Tall Figure), 1948–49, bronze, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, gift of Robert Sarnoff, 76.369. © Alberto
Giacometti Estate / VAGA at Artists Rights Society
(ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris
PAGE 6
Alberto Giacometti, Walking Man I, 1960, bronze,
Fondation Giacometti. © Succession Alberto
Giacometti / ADAGP, Paris, 2022
PAGE 7
Alberto Giacometti, Bust of a Man (Lotar II), 1964–65,
bronze, Fondation Giacometti. © Succession Alberto
Giacometti / ADAGP, Paris, 2022
Figuring and Adorning the Body
in Ancient Colombia
PAGE 8
Calima, Pectoral with Face, 200 BC–AD 1300, gold,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Alfred C.
Glassell, Jr., 2010.748.
PAGE 10
Muisca, Seated Shaman Figure, AD 600–1500, gold, the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Alfred C. Glassell,
Jr., 2010.968.
PAGE 11
Muisca, Hanging Ornament of a Human Sitting Cross-
Legged, AD 600–1500, gold, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, gift of Alfred C. Glassell, Jr., 2010.966.
PAGE 12
Malagana, Human Figure (one of a pair), 200 BC–AD
200, gold, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of
Alfred C. Glassell, Jr., 2010.880.1.
PAGE 13
Calima, Headdress Ornament, 200 BC–AD 1300,
gold, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of
Alfred C. Glassell, Jr., 2010.375.
Model into Myth
PAGE 14
Dirck van Baburen, Apollo Flaying Marsyas, c. 1623,
oil on canvas, Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation,
Houston, BF.2015.1. Photo by Matthew Golden.
Go Figure
PAGE 16
Attributed to the Naples Painter, Red-Figure Column
Krater with Battle Scene, 460–450 BC, terracotta,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase
funded by “One Great Night in November, 2010,”
2010.1857.
PAGE 17
Auguste Rodin, Figure de femme à mid-corps (Half-
Length Figure of a Woman), c. 1910, cast 1970, bronze
with green patina and wooden base, the Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston, gift of her family in memory of
Doris Fondren Allday Lummis, 2019.324.
PAGE 18
Left: Japanese, Dogu, 1500–500 BC, earthenware,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Samuel and
Gabrielle Lurie, 2020.314; right: Iran (or Turkic), Seljuq
or Seljuq of Rum, Handle or Doorknocker, 11th century,
probably bronze; cast, welded, and inlaid with gold and
silver, The Hossein Afshar Collection at the Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston.
PAGE 19
African, Kota (Bakota, Kuta) peoples, Mbulu Ngulu
(Reliquary Guardian Figure), late 19th–early 20th
century, wood, brass, and copper, the Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston, gift of Frank Carroll in memory of Frank
and Eleanor Carroll, 2020.495.
PAGE 20
Iran, Ewer, second half of the 13th century, stonepaste;
underglaze stain and glaze painted, The al-Sabah
Collection, Dar al-Athar al Islamiyyah, Kuwait, LNS
305 C.
PAGE 21
Probably modeled by Daniel Greatbach, made
by Lyman, Fenton & Co., Bennington, Vermont,
Coachman Bottle, c. 1849–52, lead-glazed
earthenware (Rockingham ware), the Museum
of Fine Arts, Houston, the Bayou Bend Collection,
gift of Miss Ima Hogg, B.57.18.
PAGE 22
Egon Schiele, Girl in Red Robe and Black Stockings,
1911, watercolor and graphite on wove paper, the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, partial bequest of
Sue Rowan Pittman and The Brown Foundation, Inc.,
2003.1098.
PAGE 23
Viola Frey, Esther Williams and Deborah Kerr at Pool,
1975, earthenware, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio Collection, gift of
Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio, 2007.860. © Artists’
Legacy Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
PAGE 24
Ron Mueck, Woman with Shopping, 2014, mixed
media, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum
purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law
Accessions Endowment Fund, 2021.596.
© 2014 Ron Mueck
PAGE 25
Jack Whitten, Natural Selection, 1995, acrylic and sumi
ink on unstretched canvas, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, museum purchase funded by the Caroline
Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund, 2021.544.
© Jack Whitten Estate. Courtesy of the Jack Whitten
Estate and Hauser & Wirth
Philip Guston:
Living in a World Museum
PAGE 26
Philip Guston, Gladiators, 1940, oil and pencil on
canvas, the Museum of Modern Art, New York,
gift of Edward R. Broida. © Estate of Philip Guston,
courtesy Hauser & Wirth / photograph
© The Museum of Modern Art, licensed by
SCALA/Art Resource, NY
PAGE 28
Philip Guston, Painter, 1959, oil on canvas, High
Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from
the National Endowment for the Arts. © Estate of
Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth.
PAGE 29
Philip Guston, Legend, 1977, oil on canvas, the Museum
of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by
the Alice Pratt Brown Museum Fund. © Estate of
Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth
Sea Change
PAGES 30–31
Edward Henry Potthast, Swimming in the Surf, c. 1910,
oil on canvas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
gift of the James William Glanville and Nancy Hart
Glanville Collection, 2021.102.
PAGES 32–33
Maurice Prendergast, Marblehead Rocks,
Massachusetts, c. 1905–8, watercolor over black chalk
on wove paper, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
gift of the James William Glanville and Nancy Hart
Glanville Collection, 2021.112.
Embodying Buddhist Ideas
PAGE 34
Sri Lankan, Seated Buddha, 8th century,
Anuradhapura period, bronze, The Xuzhou Collection
of Buddhist Art.
PAGE 35
Chinese, Head of Buddha, 8th century, Tang dynasty,
hollow-core dry lacquer, The Xuzhou Collection of
Buddhist Art.
PAGE 36
Bengal, Buddha Triumphing over Mara, c. 320–550,
Gupta period, terracotta, The Xuzhou Collection of
Buddhist Art.
PAGE 37
Indian, Buddha Calling the Earth to Witness, 10th–11th
century, Pala dynasty, bronze with silver and obsidian
inlay, The Xuzhou Collection of Buddhist Art.
A Fiery Figure
PAGE 38
Bob Fitch, At a Night Rally in Broad Street Park, a Furious
Stokely Carmichael Delivers His Famous “Black Power”
Speech, 1966, film negative, Bob Fitch Photography
Archive, Department of Special Collections, Stanford
University Library.
PAGE 39
Gordon Parks, Untitled, Los Angeles, California (Stokely
Carmichael Addresses the Watts Crowd from a Truck
Bed), 1966, printed 2022, gelatin silver print, courtesy
The Gordon Parks Foundation. © 2022 The Gordon
Parks Foundation
PAGE 40
Gordon Parks, Untitled, Atlanta Georgia, 1966, printed
2022, gelatin silver print, courtesy The Gordon Parks
Foundation. © 2022 The Gordon Parks Foundation
PAGE 41
Gordon Parks, (Contact Sheet of Stokely Carmichael
in Lowndes County), 1966, printed 2022, gelatin silver
print, courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation. © 2022
The Gordon Parks Foundation
Self-Reflection
PAGE 43
Leandro Erlich, Le cabinet du psy, 2005, two rooms
of identical dimensions, furniture (sofa, bookcase,
desk, chairs), carpet, glass, and lights. PROA, Buenos
Aires, Argentina, 2012 © Clara Bullen, courtesy
Leandro Erlich Studio.
Q&A with Leandro Erlich
PAGE 44
Photo by Guyot.
Journeys
PAGE 48
Paul Cezanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, c. 1904–6, oil on
canvas, The Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation on
loan to the Princeton University Art Museum, L.1988.62.5.
Photo by Bruce M. White.
47

S P R I N G 2 0 2 3
Journeys
C O M I N G S O O N
48
33 × 25 5/8”
The word “tourist” derives from the Grand
Tour—a trip through Europe considered a rite
of passage for young wealthy Brits beginning in
the 17th century. The itinerary included stops
in Italy to witness firsthand the art of ancient
Roman civilization and Renaissance masters.
Generations of aspiring young artists returned
transformed by the Grand Tour.
Yet many others found inspiration through
less circumscribed journeys, as demonstrated
by Artists in Motion: Masterpieces from the
Pearlman Foundation, on view at the Museum
June 18 through September 17, 2023. This exhibition
will trace the diverse paths and resulting
output of several such artists—among them,
Paul Cezanne, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas,
Paul Gauguin, Vicent van Gogh, Camille Pissarro,
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec, Amedeo Modigliani, Chaïm
Soutine, and Jacques Lipchitz. Though their
destinations varied, these artists all embarked
on journeys to discover new subject matter and
avenues of expression, and for some the journey
became their way of life. As Degas reportedly
said, “The true traveler never arrives.”
Far Away, So Close
Paul Cezanne (1839–1906) did not have to travel far to capture
this view of Mont Sainte-Victoire in the South of France. Although
he resided in Paris for a few years, Cezanne constantly returned—
and later moved back—to his native town of Aix-en-Provence.
There, he returned again and again to this mountain, depicting
it in his characteristic Post-Impressionist style in dozens of
watercolors and oil paintings—including this one, made in the
final years of his life.

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The Figure
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Issue 23 / 2022
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