A 'Living Art'

271 Pages·2014·6.36 MB·English

by  Tabitha Adams Morgan

University of Massachusets Amherst
A ‘LIVING ART’: WORKING-CLASS, TRANSCULTURAL, AND FEMINIST
AESTHETICS IN THE UNITED STATES, MEXICO, AND ALGERIA, 1930S

A Dissertation Presented
by
TABITHA A. MORGAN

Submitted to the Graduate School of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
May 2012
English
American Studies
© Copyright by Tabitha A. Morgan 2012
All Rights Reserved.
A ‘LIVING ART’: WORKING-CLASS, TRANSCULTURAL, AND FEMINIST
AESTHETICS IN THE UNITED STATES, MEXICO, AND ALGERIA, 1930S

A Dissertation Presented
by
TABITHA A. MORGAN

Approved as to the style and content by:

__________________________________
Randall Knoper, Chair

__________________________________
Susan Jahoda, Member

__________________________________
Joseph T. Skerrett, Member

____________________________________
Joseph Bartolomeo, Department Head
English Department
DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to the many people, spaces and moments of life that have
held me and let me go – from Manning Lane and Narberth to Mallorca and Berkley and
Honesdale, and most recently from Bangor to Northampton and Holyoke and back home
to Philly once again.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Towards the end of her life, Dorothea Lange said: “How much I would really like
to devote myself to really living the kind of life that I know it takes.” To the tribe I am
lucky enough to call home, may we all know what it takes and devote ourselves to it
fully. In gratitude and awe for all the fierce and patient loving that has gotten me through
this part of the journey: Ksenya, Stella, Gordito, Mom, Donn, Robin, Laurel, Gram, Josie,
Jo, Carol, Cathy, John, Angie, Tim, Herve, Raihana, Julie, Myla, and Kelly – you are
brave and generous souls, and I deeply thank you and most sincerely love you.
Thank you Randall, Susan, and Joe for your time, effort, consideration, and
unwavering support over the years. Thank you also for inspiring me with the work and art
you create and how diligently and graciously you teach your students. Your belief in me
and my work has sustained me through many days both academic and personal.
Thank you also to Djelloul and Marilyn Marbrook for their warmth and
generosity.
I would also like to thank the steadfast and constant support of Wanda Bak, the
kindness and patience of the Graduate School of UMass and all its offices and staff, and
Commonwealth College for employing me through most of my graduate degree and to
the Community College of Philadelphia for engaging me now.

v
ABSTRACT
A ‘LIVING ART’: WORKING-CLASS, TRANSCULTURAL, AND FEMINIST
AESTHETICS IN THE UNITED STATES, MEXICO, AND ALGERIA, 1930S
MAY 2012
TABITHA A MORGAN, B.A., TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MAINE ORONO
P.h.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST
Directed by: Professor Randall Knoper

The cultural productions of Katherine Anne Porter, Anita Brenner, Tina Modotti, Maria
Izquierdo, and Juanita Guccione represent a distinctive interweaving of gender and class
consciousness, national identification and political resistance, as represented in their
artistic work. These five women became transnational carriers of a radical realist and
modernist thought, culture, and ideology that became transported through their art when
their gendered and classed bodies were left otherwise silenced and boundaried. These
women, their cultural productions, and the ways in which their art generates a counter
discourse to the dominant and institutionalized conceptions of transculturalism,
aesthetics, and re-production, are vital to understanding the co-construction of nationhood
as well as the self-determined creation of the individual self. From this overarching
framework, I will explore how these women negotiated political conceptions of
nationhood, artistic genres such as realism and modernism, and then created their own
feminist, transcultural and working-class aesthetics to counter otherwise limited
conceptions of individual agency.

vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................v
ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... vi
LIST OF IMAGES ........................................................................................................... viii
INTRODUCTION: BORDERS UNBOUND: TRANS-NATIONAL/-CULTURAL
WORKING-CLASS WOMEN DIALOGUINGWITH THE NATION AND SELF ..........1
CHAPTER
I. ‘INHERITED IMAGES’: KATHERINE ANNE PORTER AND ANITA
BRENNER ON ART, INDIGENISMO, AND WORKING-CLASS AND
TRANSCULTURAL AESTHETICS ..............................................................21

II. ART FOR THE REAL: TINA MODOTTI’S GENDER AND WORKING-
CLASS AESTHETIC FOR THE MASSES ....................................................97

III. THE ‘REALEST REALITY’: MARIA IZQUIERDO, MEXICANIDAD, AND
THE AESTHETICS OF NATION AND SELF ............................................139

IV. ‘THE WHITE WITCH’: JUANITA GUCCIONE’S TRANSCULTURAL
AESTHETIC OF ALGERIA AND FEMINIST AESTHETIC OF A
TRANSFORMATIVE SELF .........................................................................173

CONCLUSION: TRANSFORMATIVE AESTHETICS: WOMEN ON SELF,
NATION, ART AND BELONGING ..............................................................................233
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................248

vii
LIST OF IMAGES

Image Page
1. Edward Weston. Tina, Mexico .......................................................................................97
2. Edward Weston. The White Iris ...................................................................................100
3. Gertrude Kaseiber. Blessed Art Thou Among Women .................................................104
4. Tina Modotti. Roses .....................................................................................................108
5. Dorothea Lange. Migrant Mother ................................................................................110
6. Telephone Wires...........................................................................................................117
7. Tank No. 1 ....................................................................................................................118
8. Poverty and Elegance ..................................................................................................121
9. [Untitled; Feet in Sandals] ..........................................................................................122
10. Hands Resting on Tool ...............................................................................................123
11. Hands of the Puppeteer ..............................................................................................125
12. Labor 1 or Hands Washing ........................................................................................126
13. Mexican Peasants Reading El Machete .....................................................................127
14. Mother and Child, Tehuantepec ................................................................................130
15. Baby Nursing .............................................................................................................131
16. Woman Carrying Jecapixtle Gourd, Tehuantepec .....................................................134
17. Woman with Olla .......................................................................................................135
18. Maria Izquierdo. Autorretrato. Self Portrait……………..…………………………147
19. Viernes de Dolores. Good Friday…………………………………………………..149
20. La raqueta. The Raquet..............................................................................................152
21. Naturaleza Viva. Still Life…………………….……………………………………153
22. La tierra, dolor. The Earth, Pain……………………………………………….......154
viii
23. Alegoria del trabajo, Allegory of Work…………………………………………….157
24. Madre proletaria, Proletarian Mother……………………………………...……...160
25. Maternidad, Motherhood………………………………………………….…..……162
26. Consolacion. Consolation……………………………………………………..……164
27. Prisoneras. Prisoners…………………………………………………………........166
28. Suenos y presentimiento. Dreams and Premonitions………………………….…...167
29. Alegoria de la Libertad. Allegory of Liberty………………………….…………....170
30. Juanita Guccione. Self Portrait…………………………………………………......176
31. Long Gown with Sleeves……………………………………………………………177
32. Anais Nin……………………………………………………………………………178
33. The Velvet Collar…………………………………………………………………...178
34. Purple Mountains, Village………………………………………………………….180
35.El Kantara…………………………………………………………………………..182
36. Algerian Village…………………………………………………………………….184
37. Seated Woman……………………………………………………………………...185
38. Seated Boy with Red Fez……………………………………………………………186
39. Blind Man Praying………………………………………………………………….189
40. Five Men in Red Hats (from above)………………………………………………….190
rd
41. Sketch from the 23 Street Post Office Mural……………………………………...192
42. Spirit of Manhattan…………………………………………………………………193
43. Shapeshifting………………………………………………………………………..193
44. Reflections (wallpaper)…………………………………………………...………...194
45. Faces We Wore……………………………………………………………..………194
46. Ill Wind from Europe…………………………………………………………….....198
47. The Way the Wind Blows……………………………………………………..…….200
ix