Rumors of War, Washington, D.C.

Maker Pele deLappe (1916 - 2007)

Collections

American Print Selections

ClassificationsPRINTS

Date1939

Mediumlithograph

Dimensions13 7/8 x 18 3/4 in. (35.2 x 47.6 cm.) sheet: 20 x 25 1/2 in. (50.8 x 64.8 cm.)

SignedSigned and dated in lower right of recto in graphite: Pele de Lappe 1939

InscribedInscribed in lower left of recto in graphite: Rumors of War, Washington DC

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of Hannah S. Kully

Status

Not on view

Label TextRumors of War depicts the anxiety and isolation Americans felt after Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, when war seemed inevitable. Influenced by Italian Renaissance art, deLappe's approach to the figure concentrated on the volumes and articulation of the human body. As a teenager, deLappe was befriended by Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and their interest in Surrealism also influenced her work. The figures in Rumors of War inhabit an ambiguous space and have no clear relation to one another, lending the work a disconcerting air common to the work of Surrealists.

In 1939, deLappe was pregnant and living with her husband in Washington, D.C. The pensive woman at the left of the composition is a self-portrait of the artist.

Object number2011.3.15