Mabel Dwight
Brothers
1928
Not on view
Date
1928
Classification
Prints
Medium
Lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet (Irregular): 16 × 11 5/8in. (40.6 × 29.5 cm) Image: 12 1/2 × 9 13/16in. (31.8 × 24.9 cm)
Accession number
31.719
Edition
Ed. 50
Publication
Printed by George C. Miller; published by Weyhe Gallery
Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
Rights and reproductions
© artist or artist’s estate
Completed soon after Mabel Dwight first studied lithography in Paris, Brothers exemplifies the artist’s interest in depicting the foibles of society through satirizing contemporary manners. Dwight often pictured New York’s subways, vaudeville houses, landmarks, and spaces of leisure—here, she depicts the zoo. Though the apes reside behind the bars and the men stand in front of them, the perspective could just as easily be reversed, as the title, Brothers, suggests, in its association of primate and man. An early commentator noted: “In many of her lithographs Mabel Dwight sees life as a two-sided show—the show on the stage and off—presented simultaneously, and offering rich chance for comparisons.”
