Elsie Driggs
1895–1992
Videos
Audio
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Elsie Driggs, Pittsburgh, 1927
Stop 721 from Where We Are (Spanish)
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Elsie Driggs, Pittsburgh, 1927
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Narrador: La fábrica que vemos en esta pintura pareciera ominosa. Observe los cuatro cilindros negros que hay en el centro. Son chimeneas, y las líneas delgadas que pueblan el aire a su alrededor son cables de soporte. Si se las considera solo como figuras geométricas, pueden resultar bellas. Pero, como imagen de la industrialización, resultan sombrías y amenazadoras. Sugieren que no todo anda bien en el mundo feliz de la tecnología. Nubes de humo tóxico se elevan desde el extremo inferior del cuadro y atraviesan el cielo.
La artista, Elsie Driggs vio esta fábrica, una fábrica de acero en Pittsburgh, cuando de niña hizo un viaje en tren. Regresó en 1927 para realizar esta pintura, pero los dueños de la acerería le negaron la entrada. Temían que fuera una agitadora laboral. Además, añadieron, las fábricas no son lugar para una mujer. Más tarde, Driggs recordaría: “Pero cuando ellos decidieron que yo no representaba peligro alguno, ya había perdido interés por entrar. Sin embargo, una noche, al regresar a la casa de huéspedes donde me alojaba, descubrí el ángulo para mi pintura. Las formas estaban tan cerca. Las contemplé mientras me decía a mí misma: "Esto no debería de ser bello, pero lo es."
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Elsie Driggs, Pittsburgh, 1927
Stop 721 from Where We Are (Kids)
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Elsie Driggs, Pittsburgh, 1927
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Narrator: Cough, cough, splutter, choke. It’s a little hard to breathe here, outside the factory.
Elsie Driggs made this somber painting of one of the many steel mills in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She liked the cylinder shapes of the chimneys and tubes and thought they had a “cool and classical” beauty. But she wasn't allowed to look inside the factory—the owners told her it was no place for a woman. Instead she found a view from a hill just above the mills. What do you think about that?
Take a look at the colors that Driggs used to make this painting. Why do you think she chose them? What kind of environment is Driggs showing you? It’s pretty dirty, right? But when Driggs made the painting, people didn’t realize what a problem pollution was going to cause. For her, this scene was beautiful.
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May 14, 2015
LaToya Ruby Frazier on Pittsburgh by Elsie DriggsFrom 99 Objects
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May 14, 2015
LaToya Ruby Frazier on Pittsburgh by Elsie Driggs0:00
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Elsie Driggs, Pittsburgh, 1927
Stop 823 from America Is Hard to See
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Elsie Driggs, Pittsburgh, 1927
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Narrator: The factory you see in this painting seems ominous. Look at the four dark cylinders in the center. These are smokestacks, and the thin lines that fill the air around them are support cables. If you think of them only as geometric shapes, they might be beautiful. But as an image of industrialization, they’re gloomy and menacing. They suggest that all is not well in the brave new world of technology. Clouds of toxic fumes drift up from the bottom of the painting and across the sky.
The artist, Elsie Driggs, saw this factory, a Pittsburgh steel mill, on a train trip she took as a child. When she went back in l927 to make a painting, the owners of the mill refused to let her in. They were afraid she was a labor agitator. Anyway, they said, a factory was no place for a woman. Driggs later recalled, “By the time they decided I was harmless, I didn't care if I went in there anymore. But walking up toward my boarding house one night, I found my view. The forms were so close. And I stared at it and told myself, "This shouldn't be beautiful. But it is."
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Georgia O’Keeffe, Summer Days, 1936
Stop 741 from America Is Hard to See
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Georgia O’Keeffe, Summer Days, 1936
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Narrator: Like a mirage, a deer skull hovers in the sky above wild flowers. The artist, Georgia O’Keeffe, didn’t like to explain her paintings. To her, they were simple records of what she saw around her. Walking in the desert, she collected bones that had been bleached by the New Mexico sun.
Georgia O'Keeffe: The bones do not symbolize death to me. They are shapes that I enjoy. It never occurs to me they have anything to do with death. They are very lively. They please me. And I have enjoyed them very much in relation to the sky.
Narrator: O’Keeffe, who began her career in New York, eventually began living in the American Southwest in 1929.
Georgia O'Keeffe: When I got to New Mexico that was mine. As soon as I saw it that was my country. I’d never seen anything like it before but it fitted to me exactly. Like something that’s in the air—it’s just different. The sky is different, the stars are different, the wind is different.
Exhibitions
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The Whitney’s Collection: Selections from 1900 to 1965
On view
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Where We Are: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1900–1960
Apr 28, 2017–June 2, 2019
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The Whitney's Collection
Sept 28, 2015–Apr 4, 2016
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America Is Hard to See
May 1–Sept 27, 2015
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Breaking Ground: The Whitney’s Founding Collection
Apr 28–Sept 18, 2011
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Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time
Oct 28, 2010–Apr 10, 2011
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Modernisms
Aug 29, 2007–Jan 13, 2008
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Full House: Views of the Whitney’s Collection at 75
June 29–Sept 3, 2006
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Highlights from the Permanent Collection: From Hopper to Mid-Century
Feb 25, 2000–May 20, 2006
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Second Biennial Exhibition: Part Two—Watercolors and Pastels
Feb 18–Mar 18, 1936
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First Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors and Prints
Dec 5, 1933–Jan 11, 1934
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First Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting
Nov 22, 1932–Jan 5, 1933