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Mary Frances Whitfield

(American, 1947 Birmingham, AL - 2023 Canton, OH)

 

"CANTON, OHIO — Over the past 30 years, self-taught artist Mary Frances Whitfield gained recognition for her small, mythic watercolors depicting America’s tragic legacy of slavery in the South. Born in 1947, in segregated Birmingham, Ala., Whitfield would listen to her grandmother’s stories which lead to her determined focus on slavery throughout her artistic career, even at a time when her ancestors did not want to be reminded of their past.

Her oeuvre of faceless figurative allegorical works of real themes began in 1989. Her inspiration came — not only from her passionate remembrances of her Black ancestors as seen in her small and only surreal work, “My Ancestors’ Blood Cry From the Earth” (circa 1995) — but from her personal visions. Her first solo exhibition took place in 1991 at Sea Cliff Gallery, N.Y. In a review of the show, art critic Margaret Moorman wrote in Newsday, “ …Artists who move us are terribly rare. Whitfield is one. It will be exciting to watch her development, not just over the years, but over the decades. She has enough ideas, and enough measured fire, to last a long lifetime…”

Phyllis Stigliano Art Projects

 Raw Vision, UK, Winter 2023-2024, RV117

Phyllis Stigliano Art Projects

Mary Frances Whitfield (1947 Birmingham, AL - 2023 Canton, OH)

New Baby (Life), 1989

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 x 20 inches

$30,000. USD

Photo: Adam Grimshaw

 

Mary Frances Whitfield (1947 Birmingham, AL - 2023 Canton, OH)

New Baby (Life), 1989

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 x 20 inches

$30,000. USD

Photo: Adam Grimshaw

 

Inquire

As a visionary artist, Whitfield’s imagination astonished us — from her emotionally tender works, such as “New Baby” (1989) depicting her joy of swinging her newborn, and “Maybelline, Quiet Time” (2011), in which a mamma in a red polka-dot dress holds twin babies in a field of yellow sunflowers, to her arresting, complex lynching, “Narrative: Why Albert?” (1999), showing vulnerability and anguish in the form of outstretched arms. In 2019, Brian Boucher wrote about Whitfield’s lynching paintings: “ …Their small scale draws you in so close that the violence is too much to contemplate, even as you cannot tear yourself away from their beauty, infused by unspeakable sadness.

It took almost 30 years for Whitfield’s lynching paintings to be presented by then curator — now director — John Fields, in a retrospective exhibition titled “Why?,” that took place in 2019 in the artist’s birth city of Birmingham, at the University of Alabama’s Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Art, and shared by Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Whitfield was included in the 1994 publication, Revelations: Alabama’s Visionary Folk Artists by Kathy Kemp, and was featured in Raw Vision 49. In 1996, she was artist-in-residence at American Folk Art Museum, New York City, and in 1997 she had a residency at The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, N.H.; in 2000 she received a grant from New York’s Pollock-Krasner Foundation.

Whitfield continued to paint prolifically until ill health stopped her in 2015. How prescient was Margaret Moorman’s 1991 review? Indeed, in her decades-long lifetime, Whitfield created a legacy filled with enough ideas and enough measured fire for her enduring status to be remembered in art history."

-Phyllis Stigliano

Additional Press

Mary Frances Whitfield (American, 1947 Birmingham, AL - 2023 Canton, OH)

Weeping Widow, 2020

Mechanical pencil on vellum paper

12 x 9 inches

$7,000. USD

Photo: David Whitfield

 

Mary Frances Whitfield (American, 1947 Birmingham, AL - 2023 Canton, OH)

Weeping Widow, 2020

Mechanical pencil on vellum paper

12 x 9 inches

$7,000. USD

Photo: David Whitfield

 

Inquire

Mary Frances Whitfield ( 1947 Birmingham, AL - 2023 Canton, OH)

Picking Cotton, 1990

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 x 20 inches

$15,000. USD

Photo: Jeanette May

 

Mary Frances Whitfield ( 1947 Birmingham, AL - 2023 Canton, OH)

Picking Cotton, 1990

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 x 20 inches

$15,000. USD

Photo: Jeanette May

 

Inquire

Timeline

1947

Born 14 April in Birmingham, Alabama, USA

1994

Included in Revelations: Alabama's Visionary Folk Artists, Birmingham, AL: Crane Hill Publishers

1996

Artist in Residence at the Museum of American Folk Art, New York, NY, USA

1997

Residency at The MacDowell Colony, Peterbough, NH, USA

2000

Received Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant

2019

First solo museum exhibition of only lynching paintings, Mary Frances Whitfield: Why?, at AEIVA - Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, in conjunction with the Jefferson County Memorial Project under the auspices of the Equal Justice Initiative, Montgomery, AL
Monograph: APT-Alabama Public Television, 27 June, hosted by Jackie Clay on Mary Frances Whitfield's solo lynching exhibitions at AEIVA-Abrams-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, Birmingham, AL, and Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

-ARTNET

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Available Works From Phyllis Stigliano Art Projects

Content-A Thumbnails
Mary Frances Whitfield

Narrative: Why Albert?, June 2002

Watercolor and gouache on Arches paper
2.5 in x 15 in

$30,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Narrative: Why Albert?, June 2002

Watercolor and gouache on Arches paper
2.5 in x 15 in

$30,000. USD

 

Inquire
Mary Frances Whitfield

Truth - It Really Happened, 2002

Watercolor and gouache on Arches paper

7. in x 4.75 in

$15,000. USD

Mary Frances Whitfield

Truth - It Really Happened, 2002

Watercolor and gouache on Arches paper

7. in x 4.75 in

$15,000. USD

Inquire
Mary Frances Whitfield

They Hanged My Willie, 1998

Watercolor and acrylic on Arches paper

14.75 in x 19.75 in

 $30,000 USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

They Hanged My Willie, 1998

Watercolor and acrylic on Arches paper

14.75 in x 19.75 in

 $30,000 USD

 

Inquire
Mary Frances Whitfield

Runaway, 1999

Watercolor on Arches paper

10.5 in x 7 in

$15,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Runaway, 1999

Watercolor on Arches paper

10.5 in x 7 in

$15,000. USD

 

Inquire
Mary Frances Whitfield

Picking Cotton, 1990

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 in x 20 in

$15,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Picking Cotton, 1990

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 in x 20 in

$15,000. USD

 

Inquire
Mary Frances Whitfield

Forty Acres and a Mule, 2004

Watercolor and gouache on Arches paper

3.25 in x 11.25 in

$15,000

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Forty Acres and a Mule, 2004

Watercolor and gouache on Arches paper

3.25 in x 11.25 in

$15,000

 

Inquire
Mary Frances Whitfield

Weeping Widow, 2020

Mechanical pencil on vellum paper

12 in x 9 in

$7,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Weeping Widow, 2020

Mechanical pencil on vellum paper

12 in x 9 in

$7,000. USD

 

Inquire
Mary Frances Whitfield 

Bedtime, c. 1989

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 in x 20 in

$15,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield 

Bedtime, c. 1989

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 in x 20 in

$15,000. USD

 

Inquire
Mary Frances Whitfield

New Baby (Life), 1989

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 in x 20 in

$30,000 USD


 

Mary Frances Whitfield

New Baby (Life), 1989

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 in x 20 in

$30,000 USD


 

Inquire
Mary Frances Whitfield

Narrative: Why Albert?, June 2002

Watercolor and gouache on Arches paper
2.5 in x 15 in

$30,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Narrative: Why Albert?, June 2002

Watercolor and gouache on Arches paper
2.5 in x 15 in

$30,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Truth - It Really Happened, 2002

Watercolor and gouache on Arches paper

7. in x 4.75 in

$15,000. USD

Mary Frances Whitfield

Truth - It Really Happened, 2002

Watercolor and gouache on Arches paper

7. in x 4.75 in

$15,000. USD

Mary Frances Whitfield

They Hanged My Willie, 1998

Watercolor and acrylic on Arches paper

14.75 in x 19.75 in

 $30,000 USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

They Hanged My Willie, 1998

Watercolor and acrylic on Arches paper

14.75 in x 19.75 in

 $30,000 USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Runaway, 1999

Watercolor on Arches paper

10.5 in x 7 in

$15,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Runaway, 1999

Watercolor on Arches paper

10.5 in x 7 in

$15,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Picking Cotton, 1990

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 in x 20 in

$15,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Picking Cotton, 1990

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 in x 20 in

$15,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Forty Acres and a Mule, 2004

Watercolor and gouache on Arches paper

3.25 in x 11.25 in

$15,000

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Forty Acres and a Mule, 2004

Watercolor and gouache on Arches paper

3.25 in x 11.25 in

$15,000

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Weeping Widow, 2020

Mechanical pencil on vellum paper

12 in x 9 in

$7,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

Weeping Widow, 2020

Mechanical pencil on vellum paper

12 in x 9 in

$7,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield 

Bedtime, c. 1989

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 in x 20 in

$15,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield 

Bedtime, c. 1989

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 in x 20 in

$15,000. USD

 

Mary Frances Whitfield

New Baby (Life), 1989

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 in x 20 in

$30,000 USD


 

Mary Frances Whitfield

New Baby (Life), 1989

Watercolor and acrylic on canvas board

16 in x 20 in

$30,000 USD


 

All artwork © Estate of Mary Frances Whitfield

Phyllis Stigliano Art Projects 

62 Eighth Avenue. Brooklyn, NY 11217 USA

+1 516 359 3332

artjump2@gmail.com

IG@phyllisstiglianoartprojects

Phyllis Stigliano Art Projects @ ARTNET