Artwork Title: Young Black Girl

Young Black Girl, 1940

Alma Duncan

Alma Duncan was never an artist I even knew to consider but her painting Young Black Girl (1940) is one of my favourites in the AGO’s collection. I had no knowledge of Alma at the time but I was drawn to the demure painting that used to hang in the round room to the right of the Old Masters Collection along with a Picasso from his Blue Period, and a pulsating Kees van Dongen. Alma’s portraits of herself are entirely different than my introduction to her work through her subject of the black girl who sits slightly askew and closed off from the viewer. In each painting Alma positions herself squarely, looking beyond the frame to her audience. It’s as if she is daring those who might question her authority as an artist. She began painting at a time when the art world offered little opportunity for female intervention into male dominated spaces. Even as she paints her young self with braids bound at their ends with red bows (Self-Portrait with Braids, 1940) there is a clear message she sends as she stands affirming her right to participate. She paints herself wearing a pair of trousers instead of a skirt. When I encounter this row of paintings with such a strong female presence my thought is that I am disappointed that it took this long for me to find her. [https://mixedbagmag.com/tag/alma-duncan/] ...One noteworthy poem, “Looking at Alma Duncan’s Young Black Girl (1940),” provides a thoughtful examination of Duncan’s painting. While there are some beautiful lines in individual pieces, overall the cacophonous conglomeration of topics and language combines to produce only a blurred impression. [http://canlit.ca/article/words-about-things/]
Uploaded on Jan 23, 2018 by Suzan Hamer

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