Mother and child

How many miles have those tough thighs carried her? What has that keen old face encountered with the tiny blue bead eyes that drill the air? Those high hard shoulders mean business. She is part of the whole façade of women's faces. Her suffering, her laughter, her labor join together to become the impenetrable fabric of a village. She fits every nook and cranny with her ebullient mother-strength.

Wood, glass, metal

19 11/16 x 8 1/2 x 7 in. (50 x 21.6 x 17.8 cm)

Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company

81.17.905

iocolor

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistoryCleveland, Ohio, Cleveland Museum of Art, African Tribal Images: The Katherine White Reswick Collection, July 10 - Sept. 1, 1968 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Museum, Oct. 10 - Dec. 1, 1968). Text by William Fagg. Cat. no. 265, reproduced.

Los Angeles, California, Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, African Art in Motion: Icon and Act, Jan. 20 - Mar. 17, 1974 (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, May 5 - Sept. 22, 1974). Text by Robert Farris Thompson. No cat. no., pp. 92-93, reproduced pls. 122a, 122b (as standing female figure).

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Praise Poems: The Katherine White Collection, July 29 - Sept. 29, 1984 (Washington, D.C., National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Oct. 31, 1984 - Feb. 25, 1985; Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, Apr. 6 - May 19, 1985; Fort Worth, Texas, Kimbell Art Museum, Sept. 7 - Nov. 25, 1985; Kansas City, Missouri, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Mar. 8 - Apr. 20, 1986). Text by Pamela McClusky. Cat. no. 16, pp. 39-41, reproduced (as Mother and child figure).

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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