Miss Liberty Celebration!

On October 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France to the American people.

This universal symbol of hope was an inspiration to self-taught artist Malcah Zeldis, who created this painting while recovering from cancer in the late 1980s. Zeldis incorporated famous figures and people personally meaningful to her, all united by her characteristically explosive color.

From left to right, the large figures across the bottom are Ben Applebaum (a neighbor), Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Beethoven, and Bert Hemphill.… Next to Hemphill is the artist herself, and on the right is her boyfriend, Leonard Marcus. In the boat to the right of the statue are Miss America, Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, and Abraham Lincoln.

Catch Miss Liberty and her companion shown below, New York Lady (STATUE OF LIBERTY) by Leslie J. Payne, in the Contemporary Folk Art exhibition at the Tampa Museum of Art in Florida.

Source: Lynda Roscoe Hartigan. Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and London: For the National Museum of American Art by the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990).

Pictured top: Malcah Zeldis, born 1931, Miss Liberty Celebration, 1987, oil on corrugated cardboard, 54 1/2 x 36 1/2 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr.

Pictured bottom: Leslie J. Payne, 1907–81, New York Lady (STATUE OF LIBERTY), about 1970, painted tin, copper and wood with costume jewelry and reflector, 26 5/8 x 16 1/4 x 7 3/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment.