Rosa Luxemburg
Artist
May Stevens
(American, 1924 - 2019)
Date2/21/1977
Mediumverifax and collage with script
DimensionsImage: 19 3/4 × 15 1/2 in. (50.2 × 39.4 cm)
Mat: 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm)
Mat: 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of Lucy R. Lippard, 1999
Object number1999.15.210
DescriptionSix separate images, two heads of Rosa Luxemburg at top left, lower left same image of woman in long dress repeated. Negative reversed on right. A desiccated head also printed in positive and negative.eMuseum Notes
The subject of this work, Rosa Luxemburg was a political
organizers and activists. Rosa Luxemburg (1871 –1919) was of particular
interest to Stevens and occupied her work from 1977 –1991. The life story of
Rosa Luxemburg is juxtaposed with that of the artist’s mother, Alice Stevens,
in the series Ordinary
/ Extraordinary. The
series would be pulled together as a book portraying both the ordinary and
extraordinary natures of both women. Stevens reveals both her mother’s
uniqueness that made her extraordinary, as well as Luxemburg’s ordinary nature
despite her accomplishments as organizer and theoretician of prominence.
Text reads as: Rose Luxemburg, politician, revolutionary, theoretician and leader, murder victim (1871-1919). Alice Stevens, mother, housewife, ironer and washer, inmate of hospitals and nursing homes (from 1895). Ordinary. Extraordinary.
On View
Not on view
![Untitled [I think there is just too much negative space…]](/internal/media/dispatcher/11572/thumbnail)
