Bowdoin College Museum of Art - There Is a Woman in Every Color: Black Women in Art

There Is a Woman in Every Color: Black Women in Art

Emma Amos

American (b. Atlanta, Georgia, 1937 – d. Bedford, New Hampshire, 2020)

Emma Amos was a painter, weaver, and printmaker. After attending segregated public schools in Atlanta, she entered a five-year program at the Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio. In her fourth year, she attended the London Central School of Art where she studied painting, weaving, and printmaking. After receiving her B.A. from Antioch, she returned to the London Central School and receive a diploma in 1959. She had her first solo show in 1960 in Atlanta and later moved to New York where she taught, and then enrolled in an Art Education master’s program at New York University. During this time, Amos was invited to join Spiral, a group of Black artists that included Hale Woodruff, Norman Lewis, Romare Bearden, and Charles Alston. She was the only female member of the group. Amos learned to use her art as an exploration of the body in relation to race, gender, and sexuality. Amos contended that her identity as a Black woman and an artist was political in nature. Her art actively challenges the cultural consumption of women and Black identities. It is a constructive reimagining of canonic norms within the field of art as well as within American society. Amos worked on large-scale linen, usually unframed. She used techniques of etching, silkscreen, collagraph, acrylic paint, and African textiles.

Pool Lady, 1980

EMMA AMOS (American, 1937-2020), Pool Lady, 1980, etching, aquatint, and styrene stencil, 23 ¼ x 21 ¼ in. (59.06 x 53.98 cm), Museum Purchase, Barbara Cooney Porter Fund, 2021.13. © Emma Amos; Courtesy RYAN LEE Gallery, New York. Digital reproduction by Sean BurrusEmma Amos (American, 1937-2020)

etching, aquatint, and styrene stencil

23 ¼ x 21 ¼ in. (59.06 x 53.98 cm)

Museum Purchase, Barbara Cooney Porter Fund, 2021.13 © Emma Amos; Courtesy RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

“It’s always been my contention that, for me, a Black woman artist, to walk into the studio is a political act.” – Emma Amos

Artist, educator, and activist Emma Amos devoted her artistic career to exploring the issues of representation, racism, and sexism. Her work often provides a new lens from which to explore certain artistic conventions. As noted by curator Shelley Langdale ‘85, Pool Lady references the “bather” subject found throughout the history of art. Largely absent from this history, however, are women of African descent. Here Amos presents her take on the trope of the bather: a Black woman, confidently posed with a hand on her hip and an alert, direct gaze. Unlike most depictions of bathers, Amos intentionally chose to portray her subject clothed. She often avoided depicting Black women nude due to associations with sexual exploitation during American slavery. Amos took great care to render the woman’s skin, choosing rich brown tones to highlight the variety of hues found in the African diaspora.

Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine

Bowdoin College Museum of Art