Harriet Bart – Drawn in Smoke | 13 ÷ 14
Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College’s 112th Annual Exhibition
Back to Front: Artists’ Books by Women
Harriet Bart, Drawn in Smoke, Mnemonic Press: 2011, 160 drawings of smoke and ink on paper, 11 7/8 x 8 in. each, Courtesy of Boreas Fine Art.
Harriet Bart’s affecting Drawn in Smoke memorializes young immigrant workers, mostly women and girls, who died in the 1911 Shirtwaist Factory fire. She honors each person who died in the fire with “smoke drawings.” Daughter of a skilled seamstress and granddaughter of a lingerie factory worker from Eastern Europe, Bart has often worked to honor the anonymous garment maker through her art.
“Although the fire’s oft-disputed death toll is frequently reported as 146, Bart created 160 images because it’s the number she found in Cornell University’s archives. She respectfully said, ‘Its not my place to say who to leave off. I’m not a historian, I’m an artist.'” ~ Misty Sidell, Elle Magazine
VIDEO: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire | History
Harriet Bart, 13 ÷ 14 (detail), Mnemonic Press: 2004, letterpress on Magnani Pescia 150GSM, presswork and typography by Philip Gallo at The Hermetic Press; binding by Jill Jevne, 10 x 14 in., Edition of 50, Courtesy of Michael Thompson, Boreas Fine Art
13 ÷ 14 is the confluence of a poem and a puzzle, bringing together the polygonal forms of the Loculus of Archimedes and the poetic vision of Wallace Stevens’ Thirteen Ways of Looking At a Blackbird. 13 ÷ 14 is a continuation of Bart’s studio work, pairing disparate text and images to create new contexts for everyday objects. The fourteen shapes of the ancient puzzle create dynamic silhouette figures for each of the thirteen stanzas of the poem: hence, the title of the book.
BIOGRAPHY
Harriet Bart creates evocative content through the narrative power of objects, the theater of installation, and the intimacy of artists’ books. She has a deep and abiding interest in the personal and cultural expression of memory; it is at the core of her work. Using bronze and stone, wood and paper, books and words, everyday and found objects, Bart’s work signifies a site, marks an event, and draws attention to imprints of the past as they live in the present.
Bart’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Germany, and she has completed more than a dozen public art commissions in the United States, Japan, and Israel. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Bush Foundation, McKnight Foundation, MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, NEA Arts Midwest, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Since 2000, Bart has published numerous fine-press books and mixed media bookworks. She has won three Minnesota Book Awards, most recently in 2015 for Ghost Maps. Her work is included in many museum, university, and private collections. In 2020, the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis will present Harriet Bart: Abracadabra and Other Forms of Protection. Curated by Laura Wertheim Joseph, Abracadabra… will be the first retrospective and monograph of her work. Bart is a guest lecturer, curator, and founding member W.A.R.M. and the Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art in Minneapolis, MN.