Cynthia Hawkins’ work and the Black gallery scene of 1970s and 1980s New York

A record of routine and the everyday, the journal also gathers sketches, notes for new and in-progress works, and responses to contemporary art and criticism, bringing the artist’s reflections into relief. Art Notes, Art also offers a picture of the burgeoning Black-owned gallery scene in New York that Hawkins was an important participant in—including Just Above Midtown, where she had her first solo exhibition in 1981—as well as the women artists’ circle she was an active member of. Art Notes, Art is richly illustrated with works by the artist produced during this key period, photographs and ephemera, and a visual archive of contemporaneous work by her peers.

Paperback, 7 x 10 in. / 200 pgs / 50 color / 20 bw.

December 2024

ISBN 9781954939059

In conversation with Kahlo’s feminine attributes with which she often depicted herself—such as traditional embroidered Tehuana dresses or flowers in her hair—and instead sports a loose-fitting man’s suit and short-clipped haircut. Her high-heeled shoes and one dangling earring remain, however, along with her characteristic penetrating outward gaze. Locks of hair are strewn across the floor, a severed braid lies next to her chair, and the artist holds a pair of scissors across her lap. This androgynous persona may refer to Kahlo’s own bisexuality, while the lyrics of a popular Mexican song that appear at top suggest the address of a lover: “Look, if I loved you it was because of your hair. Now that you are without hair, I don’t love you anymore.”

Personal isolation—its pain and its strength—is a recurring force across the sixty self-portraits Kahlo painted in her career and for which she became celebrated. “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone,” Kahlo once explained, “because I am the person I know best.”

7.25w x 9"h

48pp, published by MoMA

August 2019