I was reading an email a few days ago that reminded me that this month was Women’s History Month. Why are people whom society considers marginal given a small piece of the year to spotlight their contributions?
It did get me to thinking about women and all that we do to enrich society, even when we have not been allowed to partake of it fully. Artist Kara Walker understands the tug-of-war that we go through – a part but apart – and she handles it smartly in her artwork, which smacks us in the face with the themes of race, gender and identity.
A set of 15 of her prints titled “Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)” was sold at last month’s Swann Auction Galleries sale of African American art.
Walker had superimposed her trademark black silhouettes – half of them female – over Harper’s Weekly pages documenting the Civil War. In instances of history where black people had been left out, Walker affixed her cut-out figures as people observing or forcing themselves into the mix. I’m not sure it that’s what she was trying to convey, but that was the message I took from it.
I’ve seen a few of Harper’s newspaper pages at auction, and probably have some stashed away among the papers and books I’ve bought. The newspaper was the historical voice of the nation, supplying it with illustrations and stories about slavery, the war’s battles, its Union and Confederate sides, and much more.
Walker’s art puts the newspaper pages in a very different – and somewhat witty – light. To honor all women – as she so often does – I am assembling some of my blog posts about us, some stories you may have missed and others you may remember.
Most of them started with an item I found at auction (or were tangential to something I had seen at auction):
The art of woman by Elizabeth Catlett
Anyone who’s ever seen Elizabeth Catlett’s works knows that her predominant theme is women, especially African American women. You can see her love for them in the strength she embodies in her art. Her sculptures have an unabashed boldness that speak to many of us. “I’ve learned a lot from women,” she said in a video interview. “They’ve inspired me.”
Terry McMillan, helping women “find” themselves
When Terry McMillan walked onto the stage at the Free Library in Philadelphia this week, the packed room of women applauded her. Some jumped to their feet. She was so overwhelmed that she left the stage, came back a few seconds later and dabbed her eyes. There was love all over the place. These women knew and felt her pain, and they were happy that she had come through it still looking like herself (in that way-out-there ‘fro and braces).
Fan away those lost years, Lena Horne
My auction buddy Janet had pointed out the fan early on, lying on top of a tray of stuff under a table at the auction house. I had walked right past it. Don’t know how I missed it, because I’m always on the lookout for anything with an African American theme. But there it was: a black church-like fan with Lena Horne’s signature written in orange across the front. It was a mystery to me that no other auction-goer was willing to bid on the fan.
Female, black magicians still a rarity
After auction this week, I was going through a tray of small items and came across what innocently looked like a No. 2 pencil. Yellow with narrow red bands, unsharpened and inscribed. A gold coiled string hung from a metal cap at the eraser end. I realized it wasn’t a pencil for writing because there was no lead inside. On the outside was this inscription: Dell O’Dell. Sensational Lady Magician.
How I found Julia Child and Abby Fisher
I usually go to the web for recipes that are not in any of my cookbooks. I didn’t have to do that for Julia Child’s “Boeuf à la Bourguignonne (Beef Stew in Red Wine, with Bacon, Onions, and Mushrooms).” I got it from the source: “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” by Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck. Seventeenth Printing, August 1967. I had picked up this edition with its original dust jacket at one of my auction houses a couple weeks before the movie came out. While researching her book, I came across another extraordinary cookbook: Not the actual cookbook but news of it, by a woman named Abby Fisher. She’s considered the first black woman to publish a cookbook.
A 1949 program for a Marian Anderson recital
I’d had the program for months, so long that I didn’t even remember when I had bought it at auction. It was likely among some documents in a box lot and, upon finding it once I got home, I knew it was a keeper. The Arion Musical Club of Milwaukee, WI, was presenting Marian Anderson in a concert at Milwaukee Auditorium on Wed., Jan. 26, 1949. I can imagine how thrilling it must have been for ticket-holders (likely not many or any of whom looked like me) for this event. What I learned in reading the program was that Anderson always ended her concerts with spirituals.
