Collage

Rosenberg & Co. is pleased to present Collage: Selections from Post-War Women, a group exhibition that brings together 30 works by 12 exemplary women artists from the latter half of the 20th century. Through the work of these seminal artists, the exhibition examines the nature of collage as a medium and asserts the technique's role in the disruptive dialogues that occurred in post-war art.

Amidst the rapidly evolving art world of the post-war period, many women artists emphatically used collage in their artistic practices. It is understandable that a medium that utilizes recontextualization provides a nuanced opportunity to create a visual argument. The relationship between women, feminist art, and collage is best described by prolific scholar Lucy Lippard: “[collage] represents a dialogic approach. Collage is about shifting relationships, juxtaposition and superimposition, gluing and ungluing. It’s an aesthetic that willfully takes apart what is or is supposed to be and rearranges it in ways that suggest what could be. Collage makes something of contradictions. It contains the possibility of visual puns, accessible contrasts and irony. It’s also the medium of surprise, which can shake us out of our stupors.”1

Beginning with the tactile compositions of Anne Ryan from the early 1950’s, the exhibition traverses the post-war period through to Judith Godwin’s expressive assemblages of the 1990’s. Several art movements are highlighted, in particular, Abstract-Expressionism, which makes a case for the connection between collage and abstraction, while emphasizing the devalued role of women artists within the movement. Exemplified by the “femmage” work of Miriam Shapiro, the exhibition celebrates the technique’s edifying potential and recognizes the artists that utilized the medium while contributing to the social, and artistic, developments of the post war period.

We would like to thank the following galleries and their teams for lending their works and making this exhibition possible: Berry Campbell, New York; Washburn Gallery, New York; Eric Firestone Gallery, New York.

1. Lippard, Lucy. “Issues and Commentary: No Regrets.” Art in America, June/July 2007, 75.

Artists included: Perle Fine, Judith Godwin, Addie Herder, Ida Kohlmeyer, Beatrice Mandelman, Libbie Mark, Charlotte Park, Anne Ryan, Judith Rothschild, Sonja Sekula, Miriam Schapiro, and Yvonne Thomas.

Selections from Post-War Women

July 25–September 14, 2023

Press Release