Maud Morgan
Born 1903 in New York, NY, died 1999, Cambridge, MA
Schmerz, 1956, gouache and charcoal on paper, Museum Purchase, 1997.69
Accounts of Maud Morgan’s life celebrate her independent spirit, her birth in 1903 into the Cabot family of Boston, her friendship with Hemingway and Joyce, and her travels to Paris, Munich, Russia, China, India, and Africa. These accounts, however, neglect to mention the struggles that faced a female artist during the 20th century.
Schmerz forces the viewer to look at the exhausting reality of maintaining the lifestyle of an artist, mother, faculty wife and teacher. This painting, whose title means pain or sorrow in German, was part of a series of self-portraits painted in the years just prior to Morgan’s marital separation and renewed independence. Schmerz was first painted without the artist’s face. While the paper was still wet, it was crumpled up and allowed to dry over night. The face was then painted on the weathered surface. This process enhances the feeling of the exhaustion and pain of the subject, yet at the same time reveals her underlying inner strength.
