The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of May 13, 2025

Many photographs of faces of African Americans, placed in rows, with their eyes covered in white paint and their hair cut out to reveal yellow paper underneath. A larger photograph of a face is at the bottom left corner, looking in profile facing our right. Their eye is also covered in white paint but their hair is made up of a black, putty-like material with many toy eyeballs pressed into it.

Bouffant Pride

2003
(American, b. 1965)
America
collage of photogravures, plasticine, paint, ink, and found objects
Sheet: 34.3 x 26.6 cm (13 1/2 x 10 1/2 in.)
Judith and James Saks in memory of Lynn and Dr. Joseph Tomarkin Endowment 2003.340
© Ellen Gallagher. Courtesy Gagosian.
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Ellen Gallagher was drawn to wig advertisements like the one used in this collage due to their grid-like structure.

Description

Ellen Gallagher's work addresses the history of African American stereotypes. In this collage, the artist appropriated an advertisement for glamorous wigs from a 1960s issue of Ebony, a magazine geared toward African Americans. Using plasticine, toy eyeballs, paint, and ink, she exaggerated and completely transformed the images that once promised to beautify the magazine's average reader.
  • 2003
    (Brent Sikkema Gallery, New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)
    2003-
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Chaffee, Cathleen, Jeffrey D, Grove, "Commodity Arts", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 44 no. 07, September 2004 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 10-11 archive.org
    Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content, and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 96-97, no. 143
    Reproduced: front cover, p. 48, fig. 30
  • Who RU2 Day: Mass Media and the Fine Art Print. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 18, 2018-March 24, 2019).
    Our Stories: African American Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 24-May 18, 2014).
    The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).
    Needful Things: Recent Multiples. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 19, 2004-January 2, 2005).
  • {{cite web|title=Bouffant Pride|url=false|author=Ellen Gallagher|year=2003|access-date=13 May 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2003.340