id: 162854 accession number: 2003.340 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2003.340 updated: 2023-03-08 14:16:22.246000 Bouffant Pride, 2003. Ellen Gallagher (American, b. 1965). Collage of photogravures, plasticine, paint, ink, and found objects; sheet: 34.3 x 26.6 cm (13 1/2 x 10 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Judith and James Saks in memory of Lynn and Dr. Joseph Tomarkin Endowment 2003.340 © Ellen Gallagher. Courtesy Gagosian. title: Bouffant Pride title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 2003 creation date earliest: 2003 creation date latest: 2003 current location: creditline: Judith and James Saks in memory of Lynn and Dr. Joseph Tomarkin Endowment copyright: © Ellen Gallagher. Courtesy Gagosian. --- culture: America, 21st century technique: collage of photogravures, plasticine, paint, ink, and found objects department: Drawings collection: DR - American 21st Century type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Ellen Gallagher (American, b. 1965) - artist --- measurements: Sheet: 34.3 x 26.6 cm (13 1/2 x 10 1/2 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: 20 support materials: description: rag paper watermarks: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Needful Things: Recent Multiples opening date: 2004-09-19T00:00:00 Needful Things: Recent Multiples. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (September 19, 2004-January 2, 2005). title: The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2006-06-09T00:00:00 The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006). 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: Who RU2 Day: Mass Media and the Fine Art Print opening date: 2018-11-18T05:00:00 Who RU2 Day: Mass Media and the Fine Art Print. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 18, 2018-March 24, 2019). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE (Brent Sikkema Gallery, New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH) date: 2003 footnotes: citations: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 2003- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Ellen Gallagher was drawn to wig advertisements like the one used in this collage due to their grid-like structure. digital description: Ellen Gallagher's work addresses the history of African American stereotypes. In this collage, the artist appropriated an advertisement for glamorous wigs from a 1960s issue of Ebony, a magazine geared toward African Americans. Using plasticine, toy eyeballs, paint, and ink, she exaggerated and completely transformed the images that once promised to beautify the magazine's average reader. wall description: Ellen Gallagher's work investigates issues of racial identity and its social consequences. The daughter of a white Irish mother and a black African father, she addresses the history of African American stereotypes with irony and wit. For Bouffant Pride Gallagher appropriated an advertisement for glamorous wigs from a 1960s issue of Ebony, a magazine geared toward African Americans. Using plasticine, toy eyeballs, paint, and ink, she transformed the images that once promised to beautify the average African American into monstrous aberrations. Exaggerating and deriding the racial stereotypes of the past—bulbous lips, protruding eyes, and wild hair—Bouffant Pride is a humorous but terribly poignant comment on the stigma still associated with being black in America. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Chaffee, Cathleen, Jeffrey D, Grove, "Commodity Arts", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 44 no. 07, September 2004 page number: Mentioned & reproduced: p. 10-11 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2004-07/page/n9 Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content, and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 96-97, no. 143 url: page number: Reproduced: front cover, p. 48, fig. 30 url: --- IMAGES