when you’re in the mirror…
February 13–August 3, 2025
Nancy and John Lindahl Gallery
Through every era, convention, and form, portraiture is built on the artist’s perception of both physical and emotional characteristics. To be perceived in this way is exceptionally vulnerable. The relationship between artist and subject influences the intimacy of seeing. A beloved matriarch, for example, might be depicted differently than a model for hire or a romantic interest. Through this relationship, the artist creates something tangible from something abstract.
Mimesis, or complete likeness, is not always the goal. The idea of someone (their spirit, their aura, their feel) is also desirable to impart. There is tension and ambiguity in this balance, but it is a necessary concoction.
when you’re in the mirror… is an offering of portraits that considers the repercussions of perception through a relational emphasis. Who is depicting whom? And why does that matter?
The title when you’re in the mirror… comes from a song on Charli xcx’s album “Brat.” Charli sings “when you’re in the mirror, do you like what you see? When you’re in the mirror, you’re just looking at me.” The duality of the lyric allows the listener to come to their own conclusions around what and who is drawing attention in the metaphorical mirror of introspection and relays into the colloquial use of “brat” as more than just an album: it’s a way of being. With its multi-layered approach, it could be argued that “Brat,” as both an album and a movement, is Charli’s own self-portrait.
Right:
Raphael Soyer (1899–1987)
Girl Facing Mirror, n.d.
Etching
Gift of Economics Laboratory, Inc.
legacy is undebated…
President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935 to provide employment opportunities associated with public works. In addition to funding for the construction of buildings and the paving of roads, the WPA also funded visual artists, musicians, and writers through its Fine Arts Program (FAP). Artists hired for FAP projects created hundreds of works of art for exhibitions and galleries, to enhance municipal buildings, and to promote community health and safety. Dewey Albinson, the subject of Greenman’s painting, notably served as Minnesota’s state director of the Educational Division for the Art Center from 1935-1937. He also painted three murals for post offices, one of which has since gone missing but was created for the Cloquet branch and depicted Minnesota’s North Shore.
Alex, the subject of Barlow’s painting, was an instructor at Juxtaposition Arts in North Minneapolis, and is an advocate for public arts. His recent residency at an abandoned mill in Springfield, Illinois honors the histories and experiences of the former mill workers, and the impact of the mill’s rise and fall on its immediate community. Alex takes inspiration from the WPA projects and, much like Albinson’s post office mural, wanted this body of public artwork to reflect the community it was created for.
Frances Cranmer Greenman (1890–1982)
Dewey Albinson, 1922
Oil on Canvas
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Butler
Leslie Barlow
Alex, at Juxtaposition Arts, 2020
Oil and acrylic on panel
Collection Bockley Gallery
hyper(in)visibility…
Hyper(in)visibility is the paradox of being both overlooked and scrutinized. Many members of marginalized communities are in this tumultuous social state, and it can result in a lack of professional recognition or advancement as well as heightened surveillance and an inability to control how they are perceived by others.
Hyper(in)visibility is often considered through the lived experiences of Black communities. In Untitled, 2023, Natia Lemay considers how her mixed Afro-Indigeneity (Black, Mi’kmaw, and Settler descent) made her hyper-visible to her mostly white peers growing up in Canada. Conversely, but relatedly, SHOCK UC MSK is a graffiti writer ruminating on who truly gets to call themself an artist. The largely invisible act of creating graffiti lends the artform to be undercelebrated in the mainstream consciousness, but does that delegitimize the writers’ creative contributions?
During intense moments of hypervisibility for Black people and, particularly, Black trauma, Christopher Harrison’s Wonder and Emma Amos’s Summer 1968 both respond to times of civil unrest (2020 and 1968) by representing Black women with reverence and beauty. During an oral history interview in October 1968, Amos explains her turn towards figurative art, saying “…black is beautiful and there’s nothing wrong with it; and that it’s something to remark upon and to make a record of.” In a 2023 studio visit, Harrison emphasized that the title Wonder expresses the uncertainty of the time it was made. What is going to happen next? Are we going to survive? It expresses wonder about what the future holds and Harrison’s desire to hope for the best.
Natia Lemay
Untitled, 2023
Oil on unstretched canvas
Promised gift of Mary and Bob Mersky
Cristopher Harrison
Wonder, 2021
Acrylic on canvas
Minnesota State Fair purchase award
SHOCK UC MSK
Exactly, 2024
Mixed media assemblage on panel
Courtesy of Will Watkins
Emma Amos (1937–2020)
Summer 1968, 1968
Screenprint
Purchase, Acquisition Fund
Kwame Brathwaite (1938-2023)
Untitled (AJASS Model Multiple Exposure), c.1970s, printed 2019
Archival pigment print
Promised gift of Mary and Bob Mersky
Arturo Montaño
Convict, 2021
Acrylic on canvas
Purchase, Acquisition Fund
everything is romantic…
For over forty years, Clara Mairs and Clement Haupers travelled, exhibited, and lived together. Mairs and Haupers were deeply embedded in the Minnesota creative community: Mairs organized the Art League of Saint Paul, Haupers was the director of the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project, and both taught at the M’s predecessor, the St Paul School of Fine Arts.
Beth Bergman is an artist, a founding member of the Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota, and former owner of Wet Paint, a beloved art supply store on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul. Bergman and her longtime partner Jay Torvik are regular attendees at opening receptions, museum programs, and art galleries around the Twin Cities.
These two couples, eighty years apart, are St. Paul fixtures, known by those around them as enthusiastic supporters of the local arts scene.
Clement Haupers (1900–1982)
Portrait of Clara Mairs, n.d.
Oil on masonite
Gift of the artist
Clement Haupers (1900–1982)
Mairs Bathing, 1937
Graphite on paper
Gift of John and Colles Larkin
Clara Mairs (1878–1963)
Self Portrait with Haupers, ca. 1930
Oil on board
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Butler
Clara Mairs (1878–1963)
Untitled (Haupers with pipe), n.d.
Graphite on paper
Gift of John and Colles Larkin
Patricia Olson
Jay Torvik and Beth Bergman, 2013
Oil on two panels
Courtesy of Jay Torvik and Beth Bergman
i’ve been looking at you so long now i only see me…
Through a father’s hands, a grandmother’s memory, and a soft moment in the family business, Kat Eng, Maiya Lea Hartman, and Wing Young Huie have created modern family portraits that emphasize and enhance cultural influences. From the driftless region to the empty seat at the head of the table, love, loss, and growth shape these dynamic, tender, complicated representations of kinship.
Kat Eng
Backwaters II, 2020
Archival pigment print
Purchase, Acquisition Fund
Wing Young Huie
Hong Kong Restaurant, Forsyth, Montana, 2001-2
Gelatin silver print
Purchase, Acquisition Fund
Maiya Lea Hartman
You Brought the Sunshine, 2024
Acrylic and airbrush on panel
Purchase, Acquisition Fund
perceptions of masculinity…
A “pugilist” is a professional fighter or boxer. This term was most popular in the early to mid 1800s and was often featured on posters accompanied by illustrations of mustachioed men in defensive postures advertising fights for entertainment. Louis Safer’s The Pugilist is pensive: the figure’s swollen muscles are at rest, loosely holding a towel, and earthen in tone. Safer’s work suggests that while physical prowess may be associated with masculinity, violence doesn’t have to be.
From a series of works about playing house queerly by rejecting traditional gendered forms of expression, Moises Salazar’s glitter portrait joyfully contradicts societal expectations to conform to traditional gender roles. Rather, Salazar “defiantly imagine[s their] own visions of play, familial bonds, and identity.”
Louis Safer (1913–2002)
The Pugilist, 1948
Oil on linen
Gift of the artist’s estate
Moises Salazar
Jefe de Jefes, 2022
Glitter and acrylic on canvas, yarn
Purchase, Acquisition Fund
Frank Gaard
Portrait of Joe Woodside, 1996
Acrylic on paper
Gift of Joe Woodside
girl, so confusing…
Throughout the history of portraiture, the depiction of women has often catered to the male gaze. Whether objects of desire or symbols of morality, women in portraiture have not always been represented fairly or fully. Despite the dominant narrative supported by hundreds of years of art historical canon, women are more than vessels to arbitrarily ascribe value.
Whimsical, weary, intentionally androgynous, or overtly ostentatious, the women on this wall are represented with the nuance appropriate to their varied lived experiences, among others, as a silent film actress, an heiress, a farm hand, a dressmaker.
Frank Gaard
Channeling Kathy Halbreich through Sandra B, 1993–4
Acrylic on paper
Gift of Joe Woodside
Beatrice Wood (1893–1998)
Portrait of Helen Freeman, 1933
Watercolor and pencil on paper
Gift of Francis Naumann
Wes Winship
Malala, 2016
Screenprint on paper
Purchase, Acquisition Fund
Nikol Schattenstein (1877–1954)
Portrait of Marion Davies, 1920s
Oil on canvas
Gift of Florence H. and Louis F. Weyand
Judith Roode (1943–2018)
Approach Avoidance #22, 1986
Black pastel on paper
Gift of the estate of Judith Roode
Susan Hauptman (1947–2015)
Self-portrait, 1995
Charcoal and pastel on paper
Gift of Craig and Lynn Jacobson
Frances Cranmer Greenman
Gertrude at the Organ, 1922
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of Thomas J. Arneson
Frances Cranmer Greenman (1890–1982)
Portrait of Virginia Collins McDonald, 1933
Oil on canvas
Gift of Deborah Diane Everds
Robert Henri (1865–1929)
Modiste of Madrid, 1906
Oil on canvas
Purchase, Acquisition Fund
Wanda Gág (1893–1946)
Self-Portrait, n.d.
Self-Portrait, n.d.
Watercolor and gouache on sandpaper
Gift of John and Colles Larkin
Unknown
Portrait of Wanda Gág with Beaded Necklace, n.d.
Gelatin silver print
Gift of John and Colles Larkin
Hal Phyfe (1892–1968)
Portrait of Wanda Gág, n.d.
Gelatin silver print
Gift of John and Colles Larkin
Minnesota Museum of American Art
350 Robert Street North
St. Paul, MN 55101
Located in the Historic Pioneer Endicott
Office: 651.797.2571
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