KYRA MARKHAM
Bobby C. Martin (Muscogee [Creek], b. 1957), “Emigrant Indians #1,” 2018. Five-color screenprint on Crane Lettra paper, 20 × 20 inches. Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Museum purchase. GMOA 2021.260. idealized Black female figures, with elongated bodies, dark brown skin and masklike faces, are at once a celebration of African culture and a comment on its enduring presence. He would repeat these themes throughout his career. This late aquatint represents one example in a series of erotic scenes that echo the Turkish bath scenes and opulent interiors found in “odalisque” paint- ings of 19th-century European art. ELDZIER CORTOR e ldzier Cortor was a Chicago-based painter and master printmaker. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and, during the 1930s, worked as an easel painter for the Works Progress Administration. He later helped establish Chicago’s Southside Communi- ty Art Center. Cortor is best remembered for his idyllic depictions of Black women inspired by his study of the Gullah community inhabiting the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia. He received two fellowships during the 1940s to travel visit these areas and paint inhabitants of the islands whose culture closely mirrored customs found in West Africa. Cortor was particularly enamored with capturing the female figure and once stated: “the Black woman represents the Black race.” His
b orn Elaine Hyman, the artist Kyra Markham trained at the Art Institute of Chicago and, upon completing her studies in 1909, pursued a parallel career in theater and film, perform - ing in Hollywood movies, with the Chicago Little Theatre and later as part of the Provincetown Players. By the 1930s, Markham’s work as a printmaker and muralist gained momentum, and she exhibited litho- graphs in the social realist style to great critical and commercial ac- claim. Like her murals and later wartime paintings, these prints feature dynamic figural groupings and dramatic lighting that resonate with her theatrical background and convey the fanciful and grotesque aspects of Depression-era and wartime society. In 1946, Markham moved with her husband, the stage designer David Gaither, to a farm in Halifax, Vermont. Unlike the boosterism and pa- triotism of her works during World War II, “Winter Landscape” conveys a much more somber, quieter mood. The painting recalls her other pictures of the wintry landscape, barn buildings and gnarled trees that surrounded her Vermont home. Rather than a merely bucolic New En- gland scene under a bed of snow, “Winter Landscape” conveys a hazy dreamlike space, glowing in sunlight filtered through downy clouds. The twisting and towering tree, with blasted and barren limbs, appears glaringly backlit and dramatically cropped. Yet its wounded body still vibrates with life, standing like a lone sentinel in the bleak winter of the nuclear age.
Shawnya L. Harris, Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Curator of African American and African Diasporic Art
Eldzier Cortor (American, 1916 – 2015), “Sepia Odalisque I,” 1998. Aquatint on paper, 19 3/4 × 13 3/4 inches (image). Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Museum purchase with funds provided by bequest of Paul W. Richelson. GMOA 2022.6.
Kyra Markham (American, 1891 – 1967), “Winter Landscape,” 1947. Oil on panel, 23 3/8 × 17 1/4 inches. Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Gift of James Woods and sons, Bath, Ohio. GMOA 2021.147.
Jeffrey Richmond-Moll, curator of American art
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