Colored pencil and pigments on paperexpand_more
Gift of the Mary Sully Foundationexpand_more 2023.56.7
In the early half of the twentieth century, at a moment when modernism, abstraction, Art Nouveau-style designs, and Native American art established a place in fine art museums across America, Sully quietly began to revolutionize Native and American art by intentionally and carefully making connections between these seemingly unrelated genres, and, in doing so, perhaps unintentionally transformed the field of American art. Working without patronage, in near obscurity and largely self-taught, Sully produced over 130 intricately drawn and vividly colored three-panel ‘personality prints’ and several detailed drawings that captured the culture of her Dakota community and other Native nations; scenes she observed while living in New York City; and vignettes of popular culture of the 1920s and ‘30s.
Anna Pavlova was one of the most celebrated ballerinas of the early 20th Century, most known for The Dying Swan, a solo performance choreographed for her. In this personality print, the distorted white dying swan appearing in the water takes flight into the tall green airy and graceful green grasses dancing on the page. White curved parallel lines - found in quilled and beaded blankets – appear at the top of the panel, perhaps signaling the swan’s ascension to heaven.
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