Editor’s Pick: Determined Women at Hillwood Museum
metroweekly.comDetermined Women: Collectors, Artists, and Designers at Hillwood features nearly 100 items from the permanent collection, dating from the 1700s all the way up to today.The exhibition builds on The Houses and Collections of Marjorie Merriweather Post: The Joy of It, a glossy book published last fall and written by Hillwood’s curatorial team led by Chief Curator Wilfried Zeisler, who curated Determined Women.The exhibition is grouped into four sections, opening with a look at the Post family women — including Post and her three daughters — viewed through photographs, portraits, and other memorabilia.That’s followed by a section that focuses on more than twenty influential women as seen through their objects and portraits — a wide-ranging grouping including proto-feminist women from the Age of Enlightenment as well as both ancient and modern rulers — ending with one of Hillwood’s newest acquisitions, a contemporary ceramic piece with images of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kamala Harris, and Stacey Abrams.Additional contemporary pieces from the museum’s collection, works by Isabelle de Borchgrave and Cindy Sherman inspired by historic pieces collected by Post, will also be on display for the purpose of juxtaposition as well as demonstration of the continued talent of women artists today.A short section focused on historic awards honoring women, such as the Order of St.
Catherine, and awards won by Post, such as the Legion of Honor, serves as a kind of prelude to the fourth and final section, which presents Hillwood in a new light and perspective — as a women’s art collection.Narrowing the scope to those works of portraiture, fashion, and interior design created by women artists and designers on commission by Post — fashion.
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