Two Women II

Kay WalkingStick, Two Women II, 1973, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2021.30.1, © Kay Walkingstick, 2017
Copied Kay WalkingStick, Two Women II, 1973, acrylic on canvas, overall: 42 3⁄8 × 44 1⁄8 in. (107.6 × 112.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2021.30.1, © Kay Walkingstick, 2017

Artwork Details

Title
Two Women II
Artist
Date
1973
Location
Dimensions
overall: 42 3⁄8 × 44 1⁄8 in. (107.6 × 112.1 cm)
Copyright
© Kay Walkingstick, 2017
Credit Line
Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
Mediums
Mediums Description
acrylic on canvas
Classifications
Highlights
Subjects
  • Figure group — female
Object Number
2021.30.1
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2021.30.1

Artwork Description

How easily can you find the two women of the title? The painting's eye-popping hues and lack of volumetric detail create playful confusion between the figures and the background.

A Cherokee woman, Kay WalkingStick has been a double trailblazer in American art. She describes this painting as a joyful expression of female self-determination and sensuality. Produced amid the women's movement and the sexual revolution of the 1970s, it offers a rejoinder to the long history of male artists depicting the female nude.

Videos

Related Posts

Landscape of mountains with Native motifs overlayed.
From the CollectionWomen Artists11/10/2021
Kay WalkingStick and the Indigenous Presence in American Landscape Painting
A look at three paintings that represent three different decades of the artist’s vibrant career
A photograph of Melissa Ho by Jeff Elkins
Melissa Ho
Curator (20th-Century Art)