Being Seen: People and Places in American Art, 1960s to Today

Radcliffe Bailey, "Sacred Cosmos," 2003, Mixed media on wood, 82 x 69 x 5 in., General Purchase Fund, 2004.02
 Radcliffe Bailey, "Sacred Cosmos," 2003, Mixed media on wood, 82 x 69 x 5 in., General Purchase Fund, 2004.02,

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Being Seen: People and Places in American Art, 1960s to Today

Mary & George W. Cheney, Jr. Gallery

Featuring bold and visionary works from the 1960s to the 2010s, this installation explores depictions of people and places in America through a range of mediums including sculpture, print, collage, photography, and painting. The works are drawn from the permanent collection of the New Britain Museum of American Art and include recent purchases and collection highlights.

Coming of age in the mid-1900s during the Civil Rights Movement, groundbreaking artists including Elizabeth Catlett, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith create work that brings awareness to struggle in American life while also celebrating the rich diversity of their cultural heritage. Using collage, assemblage, and abstraction to fragment their compositions, these artists imbue their works–and the people and places depicted–with a sense of tension and transformation.

More recent artists Radcliffe Bailey, Stephanie Syjuco, Martine Gutierrez, and Hernan Bas address notions of visibility and invisibility of American people and history. The images depicted bring experiences of historically marginalized or oppressed peoples into focus and acknowledge legacies of individual and collective pain and resilience.

Assembled together, these important works challenge and inspire ideas about what it means to be an American today.