{"id":328352,"date":"2018-07-12T10:09:10","date_gmt":"2018-07-12T14:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=328352"},"modified":"2019-01-07T15:37:52","modified_gmt":"2019-01-07T20:37:52","slug":"josephine-tota-recovering-an-audacious-and-radical-voice-in-art-history-328352","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/josephine-tota-recovering-an-audacious-and-radical-voice-in-art-history-328352\/","title":{"rendered":"Recovering an \u2018audacious and radical\u2019 voice in art history"},"content":{"rendered":"

An exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery<\/a> is bringing new attention to an unconventional artist whose talent as an \u201coutsider\u201d went largely unnoticed during her life as a Rochester seamstress.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Josephine Tota, Untitled, 1984
Egg tempera on panel
7 1\/16 x 28 13\/16 x 1\/4 in.
Collection of Rosamond Tota, daughter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Surreal Visions of Josephine Tota<\/a>,<\/em> which will be exhibited through September 9, brings together more than 90 of Tota\u2019s paintings, about 20 of which are drawn from the museum\u2019s collection and the rest on loan from family and friends.<\/p>\n

Condensing art-historical and popular culture sources\u2014medieval illuminated manuscripts, early Renaissance panel paintings, the work of surrealist icons Frida Kahlo and Salvador Dal\u00ed, fairy tales, and children\u2019s book illustrations\u2014Tota created private images of startling immediacy and timelessness, says Jessica Marten, curator of American art at the
\nmuseum.<\/p>\n

\"painting\"
Josephine Tota, Untitled, 1984
Egg tempera on panel
7 1\/16 x 28 13\/16 x 1\/4 in.
Collection of Rosamond Tota, daughter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Imbued with themes of metamorphosis, family bonds, physical pain, human frailty, the natural world, loss, and tragedy, the work represents the \u201caudacious and radical voice\u201d of an artist almost lost to history, one who challenges commonly held assumptions about female artists working outside the mainstream.<\/p>\n

In the exhibition\u2019s catalog, Marten writes, \u201cUnusual paintings like these\u2014near death-defying expressions of a little-known artist\u2019s interior world, with incisive inquiries into womanhood, age, and power\u2014rarely find their way inside an art museum\u2019s walls.\u201d<\/p>\n

A seamstress and amateur artist who lived a conventional life among the Italian immigrant community in Rochester, Tota discovered the medium of egg tempera in her early 70s. Painting in the privacy of her home, she created a body of work that includes more than 90 small jewel-like paintings. In 1990, an exhibition in the Creative Workshop\u2019s<\/a> faculty and student exhibit space included more than 20 of her late paintings and a small group of ceramic figures and masks. That was the only time her late paintings were exhibited during her lifetime. The paintings were not available for sale and almost everything remained in the artist\u2019s possession until her death in 1996.<\/p>\n

In an essay about the exhibition, Janet Catherine Berlo, a professor of art and art history and of visual and cultural studies at Rochester, puts Tota in a line of artists that includes mediaeval painter and nun Hildegard of Bingen, Mexican surrealist Frida Kahlo, and 20th-century \u201coutsiders\u201d Theora Hamblett and Charlotte Salomon. Except for Kahlo, who came to the attention of the art world during her lifetime, Berlo writes, the work of the other women \u201ccould easily have been overlooked or lost\u2014a fate surely encountered by other unsung women. . . . The serenditpity of these histories makes us wonder how many other bodies of astonishing work by singular and remarkable women may have perished in the last century. Such a thought should make us value even more highly those that have survived.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the exhibition\u2019s premiere at the Memorial Art Gallery, additional venues will be arranged by International Arts & Artists, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that promotes the arts internationally.<\/p>\n

\u2014Robin L. Flanigan<\/p>\n

\n

EVENTS<\/h2>\n

Josephine Tota and Grandma Moses: Unconventional Artists, Age, and Creative Agency<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

2 p.m. Sunday, July 15, MAG Auditorium<\/p>\n

In the context of unconventional artists developing their unique voices later in life, MAG curator Jess Marten<\/a> will discuss Josephine Tota, and noted art historian Karal Ann Marling<\/a> will discuss American folk artist Anna Mary Robertson Moses, best known by her nickname Grandma Moses. A panel discussion will follow, which will include Tota’s family members–daughter Rosamond Tota and great-niece Lisa Rosica. Larry Merrill will moderate, and questions from the audience will be welcomed. The talk will be included with museum admission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Surreal Visions of Josephine Tota,<\/em> an exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery, is bringing new attention to an unconventional artist whose talent as an \u201coutsider\u201d went largely unnoticed during her life as a Rochester seamstress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1112,"featured_media":328382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13092],"tags":[14,936],"class_list":["post-328352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-arts","tag-events","tag-memorial-art-gallery"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRecovering an \u2018audacious and radical\u2019 voice in art history<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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