Nancy Elizabeth Prophet: I will not bend an inch

Abstract

"Exploring the career and legacy of the artist Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, whose sculptural figures embody her uncompromising sovereignty over her work and life. This book offers a nuanced and comprehensive presentation of the life and work of Nancy Elizabeth Prophet (1890–1960), whose figural sculptures in wood, marble, and bronze combined the aesthetic concerns of modernism with the beaux-arts tradition. An artist of African American and Narragansett ancestry, Prophet was the first known woman of color to graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design. Though she studied portraiture, she produced a body of evocative sculpture conveying atmosphere and emotion rather than depicting individuals. Through original essays, catalogue entries on Prophet’s major works, and an illustrated chronology of her remarkable life, this book reframes Prophet’s powerful work and legacy. Contributors trace the artist’s transatlantic career, from Parisian ateliers to Spelman College, and consider topics such as the art institutions Prophet navigated, the stylistic connections between her figurative sculpture and the work of her modernist contemporaries, her Afro-Indigenous heritage, and how she resisted predetermined conceptions of her cultural identity. Demonstrating how Prophet continues to inspire a new generation of artists and viewers today, contemporary artist Simone Leigh assesses her shared practice with Prophet, who offers a model of fearless devotion to her work."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Foreword / Sarah Ganz Blythe, Dominic Molon, Kajette Solomon -- Preface / Sarah Ganz Blythe -- Nancy Elizabeth Prophet's classical modernity / Dominic Molon -- "Çe C'est du Travail": Prophet at work / Sarah Ganz Blythe -- Harmonic accord: Themes of poverty and resistance in Nancy Elizabeth Prophet's diary / Ebonie Pollock -- Complexity of identity: a conversation between Lorén M. Spears and Mack H. Scott III -- Separated by a century / Kelly Taylor Mitchell -- "I was hungry, but this seemed of little importance" / Simone Leigh -- Catalogue / Amalia K. Amaki, Horace D. Ballard, Jennie Goldstein, Dominic Molon, Maureen C. O'Brien, Kajette Solomon, Stephanie Sparling Williams -- Chronology -- Bibliography -- Contributors -- Photography credits -- Index.