Exhibition News: Blurring Boundaries, 2021

Triptych, 1999
Oil on linen (3 panels)
12 x 12 in (30.5 x 30.5 cm)
SBE0870-0872

Emily Berger (American, born 1953). Breathe In, 2017. Oil on wood. 36 x 28 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

The Women of American Abstract Artists, 1936-Present

Currently on exhibition
March 28, 2021 – July 25, 2021
Located on the third floor of The Baker Museum

American Abstract Artists (AAA) was founded in 1936, at a time when museums and galleries were still conservative in their exhibition offerings, and abstraction was often presented as “not American” because of its derivation from the European avant-garde. From the outset, women members of AAA have enjoyed a seminal and active role within the group. In contrast to the other artist collectives of the period, AAA provided equal footing for male and female artists. It perhaps resulted from their mutual plight as internal exiles of the art world, and the fact that both male and female members of AAA shared common goals—advocating for abstract art and the inclusion of all abstract artists in museums and galleries.

More than eighty years after its founding, AAA continues to nurture and support a vibrant community of artists with diverse identities and wide-ranging approaches to abstraction. In celebration of this tradition, Blurring Boundaries: The Women of American Abstract Artists, 1936 – Present traces the extraordinary contributions of the female artists within AAA, from the founders to today’s practicing members. The exhibition is an awe-inspiring celebration of this intergenerational group of artists, highlighting the indelible ways in which the women of AAA have shifted and shaped the frontiers of American abstraction.

Included are works by historic members Perle Fine, Esphyr Slobodkina, Irene Rice Pereira, Alice Trumbull Mason and Gertrude Greene, as well as current members including Ce Roser, Irene Rousseau, Judith Murray, Alice Adams, Merrill Wagner and Katinka Mann.