Four of Willie Cole's Highpoint Editions prints from his Beauties series will be exhibited at the University of Richmond's Harnett Museum of Art in Virginia. Rose, Ida Mae, Willy Mae, and Saphire will be on view starting August 17th through December 4th, 2016. This exhibition was organized by the University of Richmond Museums and curated by Executive Director Richard Waller.
Finding power in the use and representation of domestic objects in his artwork, Cole and the Highpoint staff flattened real ironing boards, inked them, and ran them through an intaglio press. Cole named all of the twenty-seven prints from this Beauties series after family members and slaves and servants that Cole has come across in his research on the African American history in the United States. As Mason Riddle described in her essay Uncommon Objects | Uncommon Narratives: New Prints by Willie Cole, "In their specificity, the poetic, even nostalgic names reify the ironing board image as narrative, giving an aesthetic presence to the domestic servant who toiled at it every day."
Click here to see read more about the exhibition on the University of Richmond Museums' website.