In Profile: A Look at Silhouettes
January 17 – April 5, 2020 10:00am – 6:00pm
The art of silhouettes—at first black profile cut-paper or painted images—emerged as a popular form of portraiture in 19th-century America when there were few trained portrait painters. Drawn mostly from New-York Historical’s significant collection, In Profile: A Look at Silhouettes traces the development of this popular art form and explores its contemporary revival. The exhibition showcases works by professional practitioners, like master of the genre Augustin Edouart, Charles Willson Peale, and Moses Williams—a Peale family slave who earned his freedom and worked producing silhouettes at the Peale Museum. Also featured are self-trained artists such as the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen and Martha Anne Honeywell—a woman born without arms and only three toes, who cut profiles at Barnum’s Museum in New York City. Contemporary works by Béatrice Coron, James Prosek, Kumi Yamashita, and Kara Walker, who uses silhouettes to investigate the legacy of slavery, reveal the art form’s powerful reemergence. (Curated by Roberta J.M. Olson, curator of drawings)
Location
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West at 77th Street
New York NY 10024 US