Skip to main content

Visit Main Menu Block

  • Hours & Admission
  • Accessibility & Amenities
  • Tours & Group Visits
  • Visitor Guidelines

Exhibitions and Events Main Menu Block

  • Exhibitions
  • Events

Art and Design Main Menu Block

  • The Collection
  • Projects & Publications
  • Past Exhibitions

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Image

Joan Giroux

Ellen “Ellie” Mae dob December 31, 1922, 2019

Now On View Recent Acquisition

Description

Maker

  • Joan Giroux, b. 1961, American

Title

Ellen “Ellie” Mae dob December 31, 1922

Year

2019

Medium

Screenprint on cream paper

Dimensions

35.6 x 29.2 cm (14 x 11 1/2 inches)

Type

  • Works on Paper,
  • Prints

Credit

Museum purchase: gift of Ambassador J. W. Middendorf II and Frances Middendorf

Object Number

2022.12a

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Variance

February 1 - October 9, 2022

These photographs depict artist Joan Giroux’s mother, who worked as a geriatric nurse before she became a hospice nurse. One is printed against a floral background derived from her kitchen wallpaper, the other against a pattern on a hospital gown.

In this series, Giroux created diptychs honoring loved ones—hers or her friends’—with one print citing the subject’s date of birth and the other their date of death. These works remind us that death is a foundational human experience. In Giroux’s words, “Debility, illness, death, and dying were frequent guests in my childhood home. Speaking of her work, my mother recalled hand-drawn cards on a nightstand, a woman whose family seldom visited, the nurse whose husband was recently diagnosed. Quite young, I learned that we are all of us complete, and none of us whole, simultaneously.”

Related

No Image Available

Joan Giroux

Ellen “Ellie” Mae dod May 6, 2008, 2019

More objects +

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is Ellen “Ellie” Mae dob December 31, 1922 with the accession number of 2022.12a. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

RISD Museum

  •  Facebook
  •  Twitter
  •  Instagram
  •  Vimeo
  •  Pinterest
  •  SoundCloud

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Footer Secondary

  • Image Request
  • Press Office
  • Rent the Museum
  • Terms of Use