Photo, Print, Drawing The quest of beauty
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About this Item
Title
- The quest of beauty
Summary
- Drawing shows a woman wearing glasses and a fur trimmed coat powders her nose while looking at her reflection in a glass display case filled with sculptures.
Names
- Bacon, Peggy, 1895-1987, artist
Created / Published
- [between 1936 and 1941]
Headings
- - Grooming--1930-1950
- - Sculpture--1930-1950
Headings
- Drawings--American--1930-1950.
Genre
- Drawings--American--1930-1950
Notes
- - No copyright information found with item.
- - Caption label from exhibit Drawn to Purpose Magazine Covers and Cartoons: The Eye of the Beholder. Among the most admired American female artists of the twentieth century, Peggy Bacon won early fame as a caricaturist, but also produced satirical prints, drawings, and book illustrations. In this drawing a woman views ancient figurines while preparing to powder her nose. Her outstretched arms echo the tiny figures' gestures, as if communing across the centuries. Such gentle humor arising from visual juxtapositions contrasts with the sharper type in Bacon's acerbic and insightful caricatures.
- - Caption label from exhibit "Monstrous Craws...": Peggy Bacon (1895-1987), earned her place as a preeminent American caricaturist with the 1934 publication Off With Their Heads!, the result of a Guggenheim Fellowship. In that same year she began another series of caricatures for the publication New Republic, in which she portrayed prominent Washington, D.C. individuals. In The Quest of Beauty, Bacon's delicate ink and crayon work belies her sardonic message.
- - Bequest and gift; Caroline and Erwin Swann; 1974; (DLC/PP-1974:232.22)
- - Forms part of: Caroline and Erwin Swann collection of caricature and cartoon (Library of Congress).
- - Exhibited: "Wits End" at the Library of Congress, 1985.
- - Exhibited: "Monstrous Craws and Character Flaws: Masterpieces of Cartoon Caricature," Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., February 25-July 1998.
- - Exhibited: "Drawn to Purpose" in the Graphic Arts Gallery, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Nov. 2017 - March 2018.
Medium
- 1 drawing on off-white wove paper : India ink and black crayon ; 35.4 x 29.0 cm (sheet)
Call Number/Physical Location
- SWANN - no. 257 (A size) [P&P]
Source Collection
- Caroline and Erwin Swann collection of caricature & cartoon (Library of Congress)
Repository
- Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
Digital Id
- ppmsc 05877 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsc.05877
- cph 3b31394 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b31394
Library of Congress Control Number
- 2009616258
Reproduction Number
- LC-DIG-ppmsc-05877 (digital file from original) LC-USZ62-84841 (b&w film copy neg.)
Rights Advisory
- Publication may be restricted. For information see "Peggy Bacon," https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/174_baco.html
Online Format
- image