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Course: The Seeing America Project > Unit 8
Lesson 3: 1870-now- Winslow Homer, Taking Sunflower to Teacher
- Harry Fonseca, Two Coyotes with Flags
- When department stores were new: women in the American city
- Hale Woodruff, The Banjo Player
- A beacon of hope, Aaron Douglas's Aspiration
- Vertis Hayes, The Lynchers
- Thelma Streat, Girl with Bird
- Beauford Delaney's portrait of Marian Anderson
- Barbara Zucker, Mix, Stir, Pour (White Floor Piece)
- Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Cleaning the museum—maintenance art
- Ben Shahn, Contemporary American Sculpture
- Kerry James Marshall, Our Town
- Stefanie Jackson, Bluest Eye
- Amy Sherald, Precious Jewels by the Sea
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Thelma Streat, Girl with Bird
"Girl with Bird" by Thelma Streat showcases a child's imagination and connection with nature. The painting's abstract style, mask-like face, and stillness emphasize the innocence and curiosity of youth. Streat's work reflects her interest in different cultures and her aim to eradicate racism through art. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(gentle piano music) - [Dr. Beth] We're in
the Georgia Museum of Art looking at a portrait. This is called "Girl with
Bird," by Thelma Streat. And this is a young girl, I would say maybe 10, 12 years old. - [Dr. Shawnya] And it's
an interesting painting because it emphasizes this
whole idea of imagination. If you think about the way that she looks not directly at the viewer, but averts her eyes in a
look of wonder or curiosity. - [Dr. Beth] Yeah, and
that bright, yellow bird looks in the opposite direction than the one that she looks in. When I look at it, my
thinking is that that bird may not really be sitting on her head, or maybe it is. But, in any case, it
does suggest that idea of a child's imagination and engagement with the world of nature and with animals. - [Dr. Shawnya] There's
a sense of stillness, even with the bird position
on top of her head, the little feet are so wispy. They're so lightly planted on her head, but yet it's a very steady portrait. - [Dr. Beth] She is mostly
frontal and symmetrical. She's painted in a way
that is very abstract. In other words, that oval of her face, the shape of her hair, her neck, even the bird, these
very simplified forms. - [Dr. Shawnya] Even
the outline of the face and the fact that it's a little bit darker than her neck and her ears, it almost forms a mask-like appearance. - [Dr. Beth] The way that it's
painted without any shading from light to dark, makes it also appear very flat and adds to that sense
of it being like a mask. - [Dr. Shawnya] Streat was a dancer, but also a painter. She worked under Diego Rivera for a while with a few of his projects, actually a mural that he did for the Pan American Unity Project. - [Dr. Beth] And so we're looking at this period in art history, although this dates from
1950, the '30s and the '40s, when artists were very
intentionally engaging on the idea of art for the
public, art for the people. And Streat, working with Rivera on murals, but also painting her own murals. - [Dr. Shawnya] She was
really interested in people. In fact, one could also call
her a type of anthropologist. She loved studying different cultures, whether it be African cultures, Polynesian, Native American, she was very interested in cultures, but also this sense of universality. - [Dr. Beth] This idea, I
think that was important to her to work through her art to eradicate racism and bigoted ideas, and to emphasize the way that human beings are the same across cultures. - [Dr. Shawnya] Capturing
the innocence of youth, the pliability of the
curiosity of the imagination was something that was
really important to her. Paintings like this remind us she traveled and studied many of the cultures native to Hawaii, as well as Native American cultures. Creating the specificity
of a person of color was really important to our
whole sense of the unity of man. - [Dr. Beth] If we look at
the stripes on the shirt, they're so loosely painted. The background, too, around the head of the figure is loosely painted. There's a way in which she
is intentionally not making this perfect finished portrait of a child in that traditional sense. - [Dr. Shawnya] Around her
head is this rainbow of sorts. So this becomes this
eclectic haloing effect around this child. - [Dr. Beth] And it really
draws us into her face. What a great portrait by the
first African American woman whose work entered the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. (gentle piano music)