Finally front and center: 'Abstract Expressionists: The Women' at the Wichita Art Museum
WAM's large-and-in-charge abstract exhibit is on view through November 16.
When I was at the Wichita Art Museum last month, all the visitors to “Abstract Expressionists: The Women” were women, except for the security guards and my husband. I ripped through the exhibition as a feminist who has been held back a time or two. I can identify with Lee Krasner, who worked in the background to prop up Jackson Pollack for years, all while making her own work.
Many of the canvases are huge. They’re not paintings that you’d hang above your couch. They are taking up space.
I’ve spent my whole life not knowing most of these women. Seeing their work in person made me weep and then write to two of my art mentors, urging them to see this show.
Art history is too often about the men. This show emboldened me to search out even more artists that would be influential to my understanding of the history of art, especially in this political climate.
Somehow, I was wearing a T-shirt with a design that resembles my favorite painting in the show, “Jump In and Move Around,” a 1962 oil on canvas by Amaranth Ehrenhalt. She lived almost a hundred years, from 1928 to 2021, and I hadn’t known about her. The painting has lines, color, movement, and texture, a little of everything I teach to my middle-school students.
It’s a big deal for Wichita to have this exhibition. “Abstract Expressionists: The Women” is on view at the center of the U.S., and people may not understand it’s a major show like those usually available only on the coasts.
“Abstract Expressionists: The Women” will be on view until November 16. It's worth going twice, and the $12 entry price is half of what we’d pay at museums in bigger cities.
— Artist and curator Nancy Williams has taught middle school art in Salina for 28 years.
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