Considering Identity: Erica Rutherford on the body

The Missouri Student Unions presents a new acquisition to its fine art collection. Erica Rutherford, a trangendered artist, created this print in 1970. She served as a professor in the art department of the University of Missouri from 1973 to the early 1980s. This work can be seen in the lower lounge area of the MU Student Center until July, 2015.

Erica Rutherford (English, 1923-2008)

We Can’t All Be Perfect

1970

21” x 19-1/2”

Serigraph (Screen print)

 

This image of three figures on a bold, blue background, framed in a green of equal intensity, invites the viewer to consider the connection between body image and identity. The figures are dressed in similar configurations of bra-like top, high-waisted briefs and long stockings with medium-length, “bobbed” hairstyles. Their clothing, hairstyles and slightly hourglass body shapes might lead the viewer to interpret the image as a group of women. However, the image was created at a time when androgyny was emerging as more prevalent element in the social construction of gender. Considering the changing cultural understanding of gender, the viewer might be lead to question assumptions based solely on visual cues. The artist’s expert use of the screen printing medium provides a flatness and abstract quality of the forms, a uniformity of hue and weakened intensity of color that enhances the androgynous quality of the figures.

The large green circles over their eyes, which could be read as colored glasses, deny the viewer access to the most common indicator of the figures’ inner lives. This impediment to psychological connection leaves only body language as a key to understanding the figures’ emotional identity. Differences in body language prompt the viewer to consider each figure’s expression of individual self-awareness through manipulation of their body.  The figure on the left displays a defiant, “super-hero” stance that can be interpreted as an outward demonstration of confidence. The middle figure uses arms and hands covering its face in an attempt to create a protective barrier, endowing the figure with an air of vulnerability. The nonchalance of the third figure presents a level of bodily comfort that opposes the heightened emotional expressions of the other figures.  The viewer might consider the figures as points on a continuum of acceptance of the relationship between body and self.

Erica Rutherford at her home in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, in the late 1990's (Photo courtesy of Erica Rutherford Memorial Page)

Erica Rutherford’s mature style displays influences from abstractionism without relinquishing the figural. Her paintings and printmaking work recall the large-form abstractions of Matisse’s late work and the bright colors of his Fauvist periods. She contributed illustrations to children’s books and editions of classic literature including Dante’s Divine Comedy and Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat. Although mostly self-trained, she received some formal artistic education in at the Slade School of Fine Arts and the Central School of Arts and Crafts, both in London and studied painting at L’Academie Julien in Paris.

Erica Rutherford lived a multifaceted life. She began her career in the theater, spending a short time as a student at the Royal Academic of Dramatic Arts in London, eventually working as an actor and scene-designer in small repertory companies. in 1949, Rutherford worked as a film producer and set designer while living in Johannesburg, South Africa, on the first South African film with an all-black cast. A copy of the film is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Other occupations for Rutherford during the 1950s and 1960s included farmer on a banana plantation in South Africa, owner of a shop for women's casual clothing in London, and painting teacher at West Surrey College of Art in Farnham, England. Rutherford moved to the United States in 1968 and taught at the University of Louisville, West Virginia University and the University of Missouri. She moved permanently to Prince Edward Island in 1985, where she became an integral figure in the local arts community and taught printmaking workshops in her studio with nationally known artists.

Her first art exhibitions of paintings and printmaking occurred in London in the 1960’s. She taught art in universities in Europe and North America, including the University of Missouri. Her work can be found in the collections of the Canada Council Art Bank, the Arts Council of Great Britain, and the Island Art Collection of the Government of PEI. She was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1999. Her painting, "Country Scene," was selected to be included in a series of stamps to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Canada. Her work has been included in exhibitions in England, Spain, South Africa, the United States and Canada.

Erica, born male, lived as a man until she transitioned in 1976 at age 53. She details her lifelong struggle with her identity in her autobiography, Nine Lives: The Autobiography of Erica Rutherford, published in 1993. Erica Rutherford died in 2008 at the age of 85.

Blog authored by Sarah S. Jones, Ph.D. candidate in art history and Curator of Public Arts, Missouri Student Unions.