This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
Artwork Details
Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item
Title:Showcase
Artist:Grace Hartigan (American, Newark, New Jersey 1922–2008 Baltimore, Maryland)
Date:1955
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:69 5/16 × 80 7/16 in. (176.1 × 204.3 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Purchase, Roy R. and Marie S. Neuberger Foundation Inc. Gift, 1956
Object Number:56.199
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): Hartigan '55
[Tibor de Nagy Gallery, 1955–56; sold in 1956 to MMA]
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "1955 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting," November 9, 1955–January 8, 1956, no. 63 (as "The Showcase," lent by Tibor de Nagy Gallery).
Hartford, Conn. Wadsworth Atheneum. "Continuity and Change: 45 American Abstract Painters and Sculptors," April 12–May 27, 1962, no. 47 (as "Show Case").
American Embassy, Moscow. "American Painting, 1830–1970," opened June 1974, no. 23.
Newport Beach, Calif. Newport Harbor Art Museum. "The Figurative Fifties: New York Figurative Expressionism," July 19–September 18, 1988, no. 34 (as "Show Case").
Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "The Figurative Fifties: New York Figurative Expressionism," October 12–December 31, 1988, no. 34.
San Antonio. McNay Art Museum. "The Figurative Fifties: New York Figurative Expressionism," February 15–April 30, 1989, no. 34.
Neuberger Museum of Art, State University of New York at Purchase. "Roy R. Neuberger: Patron of the Arts," April 25–July 25, 1993, no. 29.
New York. Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College. "Reclaiming Artists of the New York School: Toward a More Inclusive View of the 1950s," March 18–April 22, 1994, no. 12.
Southampton, N. Y. Parrish Art Museum. "Dark Images, Bright Prospects: The Survival of the Figure After World War II. An Exhibition in Collaboration with Southampton Public Schools," February 9–March 29, 1997, unnumbered cat. (p. 48).
New York. ACA Galleries. "Grace Hartigan: A Survey of Five Decades 1950–2000," September 15–October 13, 2001, no catalogue.
Katonah, N.Y. Katonah Museum of Art. "Sparkling Amazons: Abstract Expressionist Women of the 9th St. Show," October 6, 2019–January 26, 2020, unnumbered cat. (p. 38).
Grace Hartigan. Journal entries. June 25, July 10, 12, 20, 1955 [published in Ref. La Moy and McCaffrey 2009, pp. 183, 186–88], writes on July 20, 1955: "And now 'The Showcase' is here or just about. It will of course be called 'expressionistic.'".
Eleanor C. Munro. "Private Faces in Public Spaces: The Whitney Annual." Art News 54 (December 1955), p. 68.
Samuel Wagstaff Jr. Continuity and Change: 45 American Abstract Painters and Sculptors. Exh. cat., Wadsworth Atheneum. Hartford, Conn., 1962, pp. 5, 19, no. 47, ill.
Oral history interview with Grace Hartigan, 1979 May 10. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. May 10, 1979, speaking about her work in the mid-1950s, states "... I was using the abstract expressionist esthetic with working from images on the Lower East Side, things from my window, push carts, fruit stands, passersby, and the bridal things on Grand Street, some nice window that had a lot of cut crystal in it. Then the Metropolitan one is mannequins in a window".
William T. La Moy and Joseph P. McCaffrey, ed. The Journals of Grace Hartigan, 1951–1955. Syracuse, N.Y., 2009, pp. 183, 186–88.
Aliza Edelman. "Grace Hartigan's 'Grand Street Brides': The Modern Bride as Mannequin." Woman's Art Journal 34 (Fall/Winter 2013), p. 7.
Cathy Curtis. Restless Ambition: Grace Hartigan, Painter. New York, 2015, pp. 144, 292, 338 n. 120, p. 373 nn. 64, 69, notes that "Hartigan initially called [this] painting 'Display Mannequins'".
Michele Wije inSparkling Amazons: Abstract Expressionist Women of the 9th St. Show. Ed. Michele Wije. Exh. cat., Katonah Museum of Art. Katonah, N.Y., 2019, pp. 36, 101, ill. (color) pp. 38, 101.
Grace Hartigan (American, Newark, New Jersey 1922–2008 Baltimore, Maryland)
1953
Resources for Research
The Met's Libraries and Research Centers provide unparalleled resources for research and welcome an international community of students and scholars.
The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can connect to the most up-to-date data and public domain images for The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.
The Met's engagement with art from 1890 to today includes the acquisition and exhibition of works in a range of media, spanning movements in modernism to contemporary practices from across the globe.
