More about Some Living American Women Artists
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Mary Beth Edelson’s Some Living American Women Artists mocks patriarchal structures and protests the underrepresentation of women artists in museums and academia.
The concept of Mary Beth Edelson’s work Some Living American Women Artists is as simple as it is genius. The artist replaced the faces of Jesus and his disciples in Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting The Last Supper with those of American women artists. The featured women artists were friends and idols of Edelson and include Georgia O’Keeffe (as Jesus), Alma Thomas, Yoko Ono, Faith Ringgold, Agnes Martin, and Alice Neel. Except for Georgia O’Keeffe, Edelson placed the women randomly, so that the work doesn’t display any particular hierarchy.
Art and religion both have a long history of excluding and oppressing women, a reality which Edelson’s work mocks and challenges. The artist said that organized religion often reinforces a “male hierarchy that intentionally excluded women from access” to positions of power. Just like da Vinci’s Last Supper, the art world was – and to some extent still is – a male-dominated place. Even though many of the artists featured in Mary Beth Edelson’s piece are quite well-known today, this wasn’t always the case.
While “The Last Supper” is a one-of-a-kind, seemingly sacred object made by an artist who is often seen as a goddess-like genius, Mary Beth Edelson defied the preciousness that goes along with the male creator myth and reproduced and sold her work as a poster. Trailblazing and entrepreneurial!
This might be one of the contemporary works that make cynical people say, “I could do that” and honestly if you’re thinking about doing it, you really should. Take an image of any institution employing almost exclusively white dudes and put the faces of your women friends and role models over theirs. It’s probably going to be a liberating collage session.
Sources
Sources
- MoMA. “Mary Beth Edelson Some Living American Women Artists 1972.” Accessed June 24, 2022. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/117141.
- Quinn, Dawn. “The Art of Storytelling.” SAMBlog, January 8, 2016. https://samblog.seattleartmuseum.org/2016/01/the-art-of-storytelling/
- Smith, Harrison. “Mary Beth Edelson, provocative artist and feminist activist, dies at 88.” The Washington Post, May 24, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/mary-beth-edelson-dead/….
- Steinhauer, Jillian. “Mary Beth Edelson, Feminist Art Pioneer, Is Dead at 88.” The New York Times, May 26, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/arts/mary-beth-edelson-dead.html.
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Here is what Wikipedia says about Some Living American Women Artists (collage)
Some Living American Women Artists, also referred to as Some Living American Women Artists/Last Supper, is a collage by American artist Mary Beth Edelson created during the second wave feminist movement. The central portion is an image based on Leonardo da Vinci’s 15th-century mural Last Supper. Edelson replaced the faces of Christ's disciples with cut-out photographs of American women artists. She surrounded the central image with additional photographs of American women artists. The work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
Edelson intended the collage to "identify and commemorate women artists, who were getting little recognition at the time, by presenting them as the grand subject—while spoofing the patriarchy for cutting women out of positions of power and authority."
A lithograph edition of 50 prints was subsequently created. A numbered print is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Check out the full Wikipedia article about Some Living American Women Artists (collage)
