Elizabeth Layton: Drawing as Discourse
Mark your calendars! A new exhibition, "Elizabeth Layton: Drawing as Discourse" will begin this Thursday at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College, 12345 College Blvd, Overland Park, KS. It will run until July 28, 2024. There will be a Gallery Talk and a reception for this long-awaited show of Elizabeth "Grandma" Layton's works, some never seen before! The Curator Talk is sold out, but the exhibition is free, no tickets needed. You can have a guided tour with a reservation.
On view January 25 through July 28, 2024
For more information go to:
Elizabeth Layton: Drawing as Discourse | Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art
On view January 25 through July 28, 2024
For more information go to:
Elizabeth Layton: Drawing as Discourse | Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art
Dear Don (Lambert),
I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to let you know that your generous gift of Elizabeth Layton's “I am Loved” will be on view in our upcoming Contemporary Art and the Missouri Bicentennial exhibition opening Thursday, September 16, 2021 to Sunday, February 20, 2022
Kindest Regards,
Erin
--
Erin Dziedzic
Director of Curatorial Affairs
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
Contemporary Art and the Missouri Bicentennial | Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (kemperart.org)
I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to let you know that your generous gift of Elizabeth Layton's “I am Loved” will be on view in our upcoming Contemporary Art and the Missouri Bicentennial exhibition opening Thursday, September 16, 2021 to Sunday, February 20, 2022
Kindest Regards,
Erin
--
Erin Dziedzic
Director of Curatorial Affairs
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
Contemporary Art and the Missouri Bicentennial | Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (kemperart.org)
PREVIOUS EVENTS
HEALING, KNOWING, SEEING THE BODY
In this drawing "The Magic Gate", above Grandma's right shoulder is her sketch of Don carrying some of her drawings to the next show.
On Saturday, May 15th, 2021, we attended this exhibition at the Spencer Museum of Art on the Kansas University campus. From the newsletter "View": You can experience more of Layton's work and examples of the Blind Contour technique in this exhibition. As part of the exhibition, five of Grandma's drawings were featured in the "Healing" area (Perkins Central Court). These drawings are part of the Spencer's permanent collection. Judy Kay and I attended with Don Lambert, Ray Hill, Kortney Voss, and Ally and Ella Smith. It's always so helpful when Don is with us, he has memories and insights for each drawing, not only for Grandma's drawings, but other artist's works and stories as well. Don is a consummate story teller! Every time you look at a drawing you learn something new, for an example, in the Magic Gate drawing Grandma included Don with an armful of drawings headed to the next show. Healing, Knowing, Seeing the Body ended May 16th, so for an interesting article about the exhibition click here. - Carla
Skipping Down Christo's Walkway
With the death of the artist Christo, we are featuring Elizabeth's "Skipping Down Christo's Walkway."
This drawing won first place from among 600 entries in 1980, a juried competition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
As far as I know, Elizabeth never saw the Christo installation at Kansas City's Loose Park. But she sensed how people were "wrapped up" in the project. She wrote to Kansas City Parks and Recreation requesting a swatch of the fabric, which they did send. She wanted to make sure she got the color right.
I was staying with friends in Omaha but had entered two Layton drawings in the Mid-Four competition at the Nelson. I called Elizabeth to ask whether either of her drawings had been selected for the exhibition. Her voice got soft when she said “Yes, and the Christo drawing won first place." She wasn't much interested in talking about that, but carried on about how nice the organizers had been, they were volunteers from the Junior League who had organized the annual competition.
A couple of days later I accompanied Elizabeth and Glenn to the official opening. Because she kept up with the arts goings-on reported by the Star , she was able to converse with other artists whose works were there.
There were three judges for the competition who had come to KC to see works in the flesh. One judge compared Elizabeth's drawing to those of Chagall "at his best."
Everyone was surprised to learn that the winning artist was 70 years old! The drawing is in the collection of the Nelson, a gift from Elizabeth. - Don Lambert
This drawing won first place from among 600 entries in 1980, a juried competition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
As far as I know, Elizabeth never saw the Christo installation at Kansas City's Loose Park. But she sensed how people were "wrapped up" in the project. She wrote to Kansas City Parks and Recreation requesting a swatch of the fabric, which they did send. She wanted to make sure she got the color right.
I was staying with friends in Omaha but had entered two Layton drawings in the Mid-Four competition at the Nelson. I called Elizabeth to ask whether either of her drawings had been selected for the exhibition. Her voice got soft when she said “Yes, and the Christo drawing won first place." She wasn't much interested in talking about that, but carried on about how nice the organizers had been, they were volunteers from the Junior League who had organized the annual competition.
A couple of days later I accompanied Elizabeth and Glenn to the official opening. Because she kept up with the arts goings-on reported by the Star , she was able to converse with other artists whose works were there.
There were three judges for the competition who had come to KC to see works in the flesh. One judge compared Elizabeth's drawing to those of Chagall "at his best."
Everyone was surprised to learn that the winning artist was 70 years old! The drawing is in the collection of the Nelson, a gift from Elizabeth. - Don Lambert
One of Elizabeth Layton's best known drawings, "Buttons", is on exhibit through February 22nd at the Lawrence Arts Center, Lawrence, KS. It is part of an exhibit commemorating artists who have supported the Arts Center over the last 40 years.
Layton wrote about the drawing: "Her strength is in her principles". She expresses those principles in buttons on her bodice: Be Ye Kind, Abolish Capital Punishment, Civil rights, Gays Are People Too, Fat Pride, Your Family Matters, Nuclear Freeze, and It's OK to Cry. Her largest button is Seeker of Truth. At the same time, Elizabeth was skeptical of those who claimed to have found the truth.
The drawing seems a response to the famous film, Rocky (first Rocky film 1976).Since she read three newspapers a day Elizabeth would have known about the film and Rocky's famous pose. In it his strength is in his muscles, his fists are out stretched in strength, as Elizabeth's are in her drawing. Pictured is a statue of Rocky on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Layton wrote about the drawing: "Her strength is in her principles". She expresses those principles in buttons on her bodice: Be Ye Kind, Abolish Capital Punishment, Civil rights, Gays Are People Too, Fat Pride, Your Family Matters, Nuclear Freeze, and It's OK to Cry. Her largest button is Seeker of Truth. At the same time, Elizabeth was skeptical of those who claimed to have found the truth.
The drawing seems a response to the famous film, Rocky (first Rocky film 1976).Since she read three newspapers a day Elizabeth would have known about the film and Rocky's famous pose. In it his strength is in his muscles, his fists are out stretched in strength, as Elizabeth's are in her drawing. Pictured is a statue of Rocky on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Two drawings by the late Elizabeth "Grandma" Layton are in an exhibition of works dealing with social issues through June 3, 2018 at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas. Layton received national acclaim for her quirky, sometimes beautiful and sometimes haunting self-portrait drawings dealing with growing old, women's rights, racial prejudice, AIDS, and the right-to-die with dignity. They were exhibited in more than 150 museums across the country, including the Smithsonian. Her Kansas grandmother exterior hid what some consider a brilliant, liberal feminist. She began her art career at the age of 68 having taken only one art course. She died in 1993, having done nearly a thousand drawings in her 15-year art career which she credited with curing her years of manic depression. She gave them all away. More than 100 of her drawings are now in museums across the country. Layton's drawings in the Nerman exhibition titled "Face" are as relevant today as when she drew them 25 years ago.
PANDORA'S BOX, 1979, 28x22" In this self-portrait, Elizabeth is opening the box, allowing society's ills to come out: apathy, greed, bias, fear, spite, lies, poverty and no hope. Amidst these, she added rainbows, writing "One tiny ray of sun hits that hope diamond and makes these millions of rainbows."
COMMEMORATIVE TO ARTIST OF THE HOLOCAUST, 1986, 30x22" Elizabeth drew herself as artist, drawing one "pretty" picture after another. But these faces have no eyes and no ears. Meanwhile, the world around her, to which she seems oblivious, is filled with turmoil and chaos. There is the Star of David, the face of Anne Frank, pink triangles representing the homosexuals in the camps, and the charred drawings of children in the camps. The ship, the St. Louis, was filled with escaping Jews. When they arrived at the US, hopeful of sanctuary, our government would not let them in, saying we had exceeded our quota of immigrants from their country. They returned to the camps, most did not survive. Elizabeth wrote, "Dear Anne Frank, Brothers and Sisters. Too late we answer. Forgive us."
Garden of Eden (1977) is currently on view in the Folk Art Museum's Self-Taught Genius Gallery in Long Island City, Queens. In fact, Garden of Eden is a prominently featured work in Holding Space: The Museum Collects. The exhibition includes almost 50-works acquired by the museum in the last five years, and Layton's work flanks the introductory wall text alongside an early-American portrait by James Brown from 1805. With visitors, I often speak about this pairing as a cross-generational dialogue that explores representations of female identity -- it's an ideal introduction to the ideas surrounding the theme of "Holding Space." The piece will be on view through July 5th, 2018
Sarah Margolis-Pineo, Assistant Curator
Self-Taught Genius Gallery
American Folk Art Museum 47-29 32nd Place
Long Island City, NY 11101-2409
www.folkartmuseum.org
Sarah Margolis-Pineo, Assistant Curator
Self-Taught Genius Gallery
American Folk Art Museum 47-29 32nd Place
Long Island City, NY 11101-2409
www.folkartmuseum.org
A drawing about the AIDS crisis, Remembering NAMES by Elizabeth Layton (1909-1993) is currently on view at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MO. It is part of the exhibition, Face America on view May 25 - November 29, 2017. Her idea for the drawing came from The NAMES Project, the gigantic quilt commemorating the lives and deaths of people with AIDS.
When the subject of AIDS came up, a neighbor said to Elizabeth, "It seems to me those people deserve to die." She had a friend, an artist, who had AIDS. She did not think he deserved to die. Rather than confront her neighbor, Elizabeth, aged 79, did this drawing. She commented, "When you are a mother and you lose a child, you understand what every mother feels at a time like this."
Remembering NAMES was included in her one-person exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. in 1992.
Remembering NAMES, June 6, 1988, crayon and colored pencil, 22 X 30”
When the subject of AIDS came up, a neighbor said to Elizabeth, "It seems to me those people deserve to die." She had a friend, an artist, who had AIDS. She did not think he deserved to die. Rather than confront her neighbor, Elizabeth, aged 79, did this drawing. She commented, "When you are a mother and you lose a child, you understand what every mother feels at a time like this."
Remembering NAMES was included in her one-person exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. in 1992.
Remembering NAMES, June 6, 1988, crayon and colored pencil, 22 X 30”
Elizabeth “Grandma” Layton: You Gotta Have Art
October 11, 2016—January 8, 2017 * Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas
The Beach Museum of Art’s twentieth anniversary theme, “You Gotta Have Art,” was inspired by the words embroidered on caps worn by Elizabeth Layton and her husband in many of her self-portraits. The caps were gifts from her friend Don Lambert, the Ottawa Herald reporter who discovered her work in 1977 and helped to establish Layton as an important American artist through his writing and curation of exhibitions. The succinct phrase encapsulates how art was a positive force in Elizabeth Layton’s life. After an unstable marriage that ended in divorce, the death of a son, a lifelong battle with manic depression, and thirteen debilitating electroshock treatments, Layton took her first class in contour drawing and discovered how art could help her heal. Her drawings examined universal human experiences such as aging, death, social injustice, and love through the lens of her own life and body. She demonstrated the power of art in forging personal connections and developing understanding and empathy. In the comment book from her 1992 exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, one visitor wrote: “I am going through a hard time right now and it takes some effort to remember that it’s all a part of life. Your drawings… remind me that other people feel pain and ecstasy, rage and glory. Thank you for celebrating.”
Layton is now represented in the collections of more than one hundred and fifty art institutions in the United States, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She has been the subject of features in Life, People, and on National Public Radio. Lambert facilitated the entry of several Layton drawings into the Beach Museum of Art collection.
October 11, 2016—January 8, 2017 * Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas
The Beach Museum of Art’s twentieth anniversary theme, “You Gotta Have Art,” was inspired by the words embroidered on caps worn by Elizabeth Layton and her husband in many of her self-portraits. The caps were gifts from her friend Don Lambert, the Ottawa Herald reporter who discovered her work in 1977 and helped to establish Layton as an important American artist through his writing and curation of exhibitions. The succinct phrase encapsulates how art was a positive force in Elizabeth Layton’s life. After an unstable marriage that ended in divorce, the death of a son, a lifelong battle with manic depression, and thirteen debilitating electroshock treatments, Layton took her first class in contour drawing and discovered how art could help her heal. Her drawings examined universal human experiences such as aging, death, social injustice, and love through the lens of her own life and body. She demonstrated the power of art in forging personal connections and developing understanding and empathy. In the comment book from her 1992 exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, one visitor wrote: “I am going through a hard time right now and it takes some effort to remember that it’s all a part of life. Your drawings… remind me that other people feel pain and ecstasy, rage and glory. Thank you for celebrating.”
Layton is now represented in the collections of more than one hundred and fifty art institutions in the United States, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She has been the subject of features in Life, People, and on National Public Radio. Lambert facilitated the entry of several Layton drawings into the Beach Museum of Art collection.
Governor Janet Napolitano, Arizona, president of the National Governors Association, Don Lambert, and Governor Kathleen Sebelius, governor of Kansas.
The NGA Awards for Distinguished Service to the Arts
The National Governors Association (NGA) honored eight individuals, including Kansas native Don Lambert, for contributions to public life during its 99th Annual Meeting in Traverse City, Michigan on July 21st. Annually, the NGA presents three awards to state officials, three to private citizens and two for distinguished service to the arts. This year, the Distinguished Service to the Arts’ Artistic Support Award went to Lambert, a Kansas writer, curator and advocate of the arts. “We are recognizing these individuals for the dedication each honoree has demonstrated to improving their states and the nation,” said NGA Chair Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. “On behalf of the nation’s governors, I would like to express our gratitude for their meaningful contributions to state government.” “Don’s service to the arts in Kansas is legendary. He has helped many Kansans appreciate the beauty that surrounds us and has opened the eyes of the world to the work of talented artists from our state,” said Governor Kathleen Sebelius. The Lambert family is deeply rooted in Kansas, with early ancestors settling in Cloud County over a century ago. Don Lambert has shared his appreciation and pride for the state by bringing recognition to more than 400 Kansas artists in more than 500 locations around the country. Recently, Lambert organized an exhibit in Manhattan of 127 Kansas Artists to benefit the Kansas Park Trust. Lambert has published four books; written dozens of articles for national magazines; discovered and helped to promote artist Elizabeth ‘Grandma’ Layton, who has become a national symbol of creativity and a beacon of hope for those suffering from depression. Lambert also led a revival of Kansas-born artist John Steuart Curry, whose mural of John Brown is one of the highlights of the Kansas Statehouse. As a result of Lambert’s efforts, Curry’s wife, Kathleen, bequeathed 950 of her husband’s works to Kansas. One of Lambert’s exhibits, “Homage to the Flint Hills” featured 37 paintings and photographs of the Flint Hills. This exhibit toured Kansas for two years and was featured in the nation’s Capitol. A copy of the tour’s accompanying book was given to each of the nation’s governors by Governor Sebelius at the award ceremony. Lambert is also responsible for arranging continuous exhibits of Kansas master artists in the governor’s office. He’s a graduate of Cloud County Community College, Kansas State University and the University of Kansas. Established in 1976, the NGA Awards for Distinguished Service to State Government allow governors to bring national recognition to their states’ most valuable civil servants and private citizens. The awards emphasize the commitment of state administrators and the important contributions private citizens make to their state. The awards program is administered by a selection committee comprised of three permanent representatives from the academic community, as well as designees chosen by the NGA chair and vice chair. The NGA Awards for Distinguished Service to the Arts, established in 1980, are given in two areas: artistic production and arts support. This award recognizes outstanding service to the arts, focusing on contributions that improve the quality of life and bring distinction to a state.
The National Governors Association (NGA) honored eight individuals, including Kansas native Don Lambert, for contributions to public life during its 99th Annual Meeting in Traverse City, Michigan on July 21st. Annually, the NGA presents three awards to state officials, three to private citizens and two for distinguished service to the arts. This year, the Distinguished Service to the Arts’ Artistic Support Award went to Lambert, a Kansas writer, curator and advocate of the arts. “We are recognizing these individuals for the dedication each honoree has demonstrated to improving their states and the nation,” said NGA Chair Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. “On behalf of the nation’s governors, I would like to express our gratitude for their meaningful contributions to state government.” “Don’s service to the arts in Kansas is legendary. He has helped many Kansans appreciate the beauty that surrounds us and has opened the eyes of the world to the work of talented artists from our state,” said Governor Kathleen Sebelius. The Lambert family is deeply rooted in Kansas, with early ancestors settling in Cloud County over a century ago. Don Lambert has shared his appreciation and pride for the state by bringing recognition to more than 400 Kansas artists in more than 500 locations around the country. Recently, Lambert organized an exhibit in Manhattan of 127 Kansas Artists to benefit the Kansas Park Trust. Lambert has published four books; written dozens of articles for national magazines; discovered and helped to promote artist Elizabeth ‘Grandma’ Layton, who has become a national symbol of creativity and a beacon of hope for those suffering from depression. Lambert also led a revival of Kansas-born artist John Steuart Curry, whose mural of John Brown is one of the highlights of the Kansas Statehouse. As a result of Lambert’s efforts, Curry’s wife, Kathleen, bequeathed 950 of her husband’s works to Kansas. One of Lambert’s exhibits, “Homage to the Flint Hills” featured 37 paintings and photographs of the Flint Hills. This exhibit toured Kansas for two years and was featured in the nation’s Capitol. A copy of the tour’s accompanying book was given to each of the nation’s governors by Governor Sebelius at the award ceremony. Lambert is also responsible for arranging continuous exhibits of Kansas master artists in the governor’s office. He’s a graduate of Cloud County Community College, Kansas State University and the University of Kansas. Established in 1976, the NGA Awards for Distinguished Service to State Government allow governors to bring national recognition to their states’ most valuable civil servants and private citizens. The awards emphasize the commitment of state administrators and the important contributions private citizens make to their state. The awards program is administered by a selection committee comprised of three permanent representatives from the academic community, as well as designees chosen by the NGA chair and vice chair. The NGA Awards for Distinguished Service to the Arts, established in 1980, are given in two areas: artistic production and arts support. This award recognizes outstanding service to the arts, focusing on contributions that improve the quality of life and bring distinction to a state.