Nancy Elizabeth Prophet

Silence embodies the endurance that characterized Prophet’s interior and artistic life. “I feel so much in contact with myself,” she wrote of the sensation of cutting stone. Although this work is not identified as a self-portrait, the subject’s forehead, cheekbones, and smooth cap of hair evoke Prophet’s appearance.

The marble is pocked and striated, and its bright surface is embedded with veins of green and gray. Color variations and repairs to breakage in the nose and chin contrast with the undisturbed clarity of the almond-shaped eyes. The subject’s expression is veiled, as if resisting access to her inner thoughts.

–Maureen C. O’Brien, curator of painting and sculpture

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-Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, unpublished diary, December 22, 1925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.