Gorilla Girls Houston (US, 20th Century)

Gorilla Girls Houston
(American, 20th Century)

"Liberty Leading the People", 1988

oil on canvas
signed "Gorrilla Girls", localized and dated mid-right, after the 1830 painting by Eugene Delacroix (French, 1798-1863) commemorating the July Revolution.
Unframed.
72" x 84"

Provenance: Estate of Hurley Wayne Gray, Houston, Texas.

Literature: Vince Lee, "With Love and Bananas: Houston Gorilla Girls Seek Equality for Female Artists", Houston History, Vol.10, No. 3, pp. 39-41; Catherine D. Anspon, "The Guerilla Girls Storm a Dallas Gallery", Paper City, 09/07/2018.

Notes: When racism and sexism are no longer fashionable, what will your art collection be worth?

Guerrilla Girls Talk Back

The Guerrilla Girls is an anonymous feminist women's activist art collective created to increase the awareness of sexism and racism in the art world by protest, performance, billboards, exhibitions and other means. It made its first appearance in 1985 when seven masked women protested in front of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in response to The International Survey of Painting and Sculpture, a major contemporary art exhibition which included only 13 women and even fewer people of color - out of 169 artists. The decision to be masked was made to ensure that the issues and not the personalities became the focus. Also, the anonymity afforded the participants a degree of protection from verbal or physical retaliation. While responses were expectedly mixed, the Guerrilla Girls were ultimately successful in their initial goal; their "hits" garnered considerable media attention and brought to the forefront the myriad issues concerning the contemporary art world's lack of inclusion and representation of women and people of color.
Shortly, the Guerrilla Girls began to appear in other major cities across the country. The Houston "Gorilla Girls" (they intentionally chose to spell it this way) made their first appearance in 1987 at the Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. They were soon a fixture at many gallery and museum openings, sponsoring their own exhibitions, performances and creating works to visually address the issues. The 1988 work presented here is a wryly humorous feminist riff on Delacroix's famous painting of "Liberty Leading the People", with the central iconic figure of "Marianne", the bare-breasted symbol of the French Republic/Democracy here depicted with a gorilla mask.
Archives of the Houston Gorilla Girls are conserved at the Special Collections of the M.D. Anderson Library, University of Houston.
Condition Report: Overall very good condition. Some slight abrading along exposed edges. Small pinprick-sized losses at lower right corner. Small losses to lower left and upper right corners. Approx. 6" strip of exposed canvas at lower right edge.