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Nancy Elizabeth Prophet

Silence, 1920s

Now On View

Description

Maker

Title

Silence

Year

1920s

Medium

Marble

Materials/Techniques

Materials

Dimensions

31.8 x 20.3 x 22.9 cm (12 1/2 x 8 x 9 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Carved on back of neck:N. Elizabeth Prophet

Type

Credit

Gift of Miss Ellen D. Sharpe

Object Number

30.092

Projects & Publications

Publications

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Raid the Icebox Now with Simone Leigh

October 18, 2019 - December 12, 2020

Cutting stone. How I love it working alone, I feel so much in contact with myself.
–Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, unpublished diary, December 22, 1925

This bust may be a self-portrait of the artist. Prophet carved it during a productive yet trying period she spent in Paris. Her diary excerpts chronicling this time form part of Simone Leigh’s accompanying sound installation. One of RISD’s first students of color, Prophet was underrecognized for years. More recently her work has grown in stature and visibility, increasingly becoming a touchstone for artists working today.

Silence characterizes Prophet’s translation of abstract ideas or states of being into human form and reveals the tension between aesthetic restraint and emotional affect found in her work. Leigh’s placement of Silence accentuates the marble’s whiteness in representing a person of color, especially considering that the ancient Roman busts were originally painted in a range of skin colors.

Ancient Greek and Roman Galleries

Cutting stone. How I love it working alone,
I feel so much in contact with myself.
—Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, unpublished diary, December 22, 1925

Nancy Elizabeth Prophet carved this bust—possibly a self-portrait—during a productive yet difficult period she spent in Paris. Silence characterizes her translation of abstract ideas or states of being into human form, and it reveals the tension between aesthetic restraint and emotional affect frequently found in her work.

Silence was first placed in this gallery in 2019 by contemporary artist Simone Leigh as part of her exhibition Raid the Icebox Now: The Chorus. The continued presence of Silence in this space accentuates the marble’s whiteness in representing a person of color, especially considering that the ancient Roman busts surrounding it were originally painted in a range of skin colors.

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 Silence with the accession number of 30.092. 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.