id: 160326 accession number: 1998.186 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1998.186 updated: 2022-11-22 10:01:46.139000 Backdrops, Circa 1940s, 1998. Lorna Simpson (American, b. 1960). Screenprint on two felt panels; left: 66.2 x 42.7 x 0.4 cm (26 1/16 x 16 13/16 x 3/16 in.); right: 66.1 x 42.7 x 0.4 cm (26 x 16 13/16 x 3/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dr. Gerard and Phyllis Seltzer Fund 1998.186 © Lorna Simpson, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth title: Backdrops, Circa 1940s title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1998 creation date earliest: 1998 creation date latest: 1998 current location: 230 Photography creditline: Dr. Gerard and Phyllis Seltzer Fund copyright: © Lorna Simpson, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth --- culture: America, 20th century technique: Screenprint on two felt panels department: Prints collection: PR - Screenprint type: Print find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Lorna Simpson (American, b. 1960) - artist Lorna Simpson American, 1960- Lorna Simpson uses photography to invert cultural stereotypes about race, class, and gender by decoding and reordering visual and verbal languages. She began making traditional documentary photographs throughout the United States and Africa in the late 1970s. While in graduate school at the University of California, San Diego (M.F.A., 1985), Simpson began to question and challenge the objectivity of such images and to examine the ways in which these documents are generally perceived. Taking subjects from her own photographs and inserting them into stark backgrounds, she eliminated their contextual clues and instead juxtaposed her own texts and readings, often revealing racial and gender prejudices otherwise subsumed. In the mid-1980s, Simpson won international attention and critical acclaim for her series of large-scale black-and-white self-portraits. Photographing herself from the back, excluding her face and often juxtaposing the portrait with text and appropriated imagery, Simpson used her absence of self to comment on the exclusion of African Americans in history and culture. She continues to address these issues. Simpson (born in New York City) has received many awards and exhibited internationally. In 1990 she was the first African-American woman to be given a one-person exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She has also been included in the Venice Biennale (1990) and the Whitney Biennial Exhibition (1991, 1993). Simpson lives in Brooklyn. A.W. --- measurements: Left: 66.2 x 42.7 x 0.4 cm (26 1/16 x 16 13/16 x 3/16 in.); Right: 66.1 x 42.7 x 0.4 cm (26 x 16 13/16 x 3/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: edition 3/35 support materials: inscriptions: inscription: numbered 3/35 and signed in graphite on verso translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: From Rembrandt to Rauschenberg: Recently Acquired Prints opening date: 2000-09-17T00:00:00 From Rembrandt to Rauschenberg: Recently Acquired Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (September 17-November 26, 2000). title: Our Stories: African American Prints and Drawings opening date: 2014-01-24T00:00:00 Our Stories: African American Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (January 24-May 18, 2014). title: Photographs in Ink opening date: 2022-11-20T05:00:00 Photographs in Ink. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 20, 2022-April 2, 2023). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Main Gallery Rotation (gallery 229): April 13, 2009 - September 11, 2009. --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: In this work, Lorna Simpson confronts the historical fact that African American women were rarely glamorized in Hollywood productions of the 1940s; their role in films was most often limited to that of household servant. The left panel depicts a melancholy African American woman in a white dress posing amid a fake moon and stars. The blurriness and muted contrasts achieved by printing on felt render the woman's skin, hair, and dress almost indistinguishable from the contrasts of the stage set. On the right a detail of singer Lena Horne is barely recognizable because the edges of the support sever her face and body. The illegibility and near invisibility of the women in each image aligns with Simpson's exploration of the marginalization of black women in American culture. wall description: In this work, Lorna Simpson confronts the historical fact that Black women were rarely glamorized in Hollywood productions of the 1940s. She explores this marginalization through an unidentified woman in a portrait studio and an image of actress Lena Horne on a film set, pushed to the panels’ margins. The artist capitalizes on screenprinting’s ability to be used on a wide range of surfaces—in this instance, thick felt panels. Because of the dense and porous material, the image is soaked into the fibrous background. Simpson uses this quality to question our assumptions about how we view photographs and their meanings. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES