Untitled
Artist
Mary Jane Bigler
(American, 1909-1995)
Daten.d.
MediumWatercolor, collage
DimensionsPaper Size: 12 × 16 1/2 in. (30.5 × 41.9 cm)
Frame Size: 16 7/8 × 20 7/8 in. (42.9 × 53 cm)
ClassificationsDrawing
Object numberUAC7740
DescriptionMary Jane Bigler was a Detroit-area artist and educator whose legacy reverberates across the local arts community. Born in 1909 in rural Indiana, she graduated from Indiana University in Bloomington in 1929 and moved to Detroit to teach in the early 1940s. She held a faculty position at Wayne State University until 1977 (retiring after 34 years) and taught classes at the College for Creative Studies, the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center, as well as through Birmingham public schools.(1) Richard Bilaitis – a former student of Bigler’s, the former associate dean of WSU’s College of Fine, Performing, and Communication Arts, as well as the donor of this work to WSU’s collection – regarded Bigler as “the Pied Piper of watercolor painting...Many people followed her and became devotees of the medium.” (2) A steadfast advocate in the wider community, she was a founding member and lifelong advisor to the Michigan Water Color Society (3), as well as an active member of the Society of Women Painters and the Detroit Artists Market. She was also an avid gardener. Bigler’s oeuvre reveals a sustained interest in landscape and still life with a particular focus on floral, organic forms — Untitled seems a remarkable departure from this practice. This vibrant collage juxtaposes the artist’s hand with found material harvested from contemporary mass media on a foundation of irregular, cream-colored paper. Painted swatches of fluorescent pink, magenta, dark mauve, and black mingle with text clippings from magazines in similar color palettes and a graphic polka dot motif at center, lower left, and lower right. Edges appear variously torn and meticulously cut; the opacity of the paint varies, as does its form and application.
Untitled hits the viewer like a bomb, the colorful shrapnel of which feels lodged in the retina as one tries to decipher the fragmented Italianate words and the trigger for Bigler’s vivid abstraction. The former may speak to Bigler’s interest in Italy, whose “gracefully aging buildings and walls and beautiful landscapes provided inspiration for her work;” she also frequented the country with study abroad students after implementing the program at Wayne State in the 1950s.(4) To the latter point, there is evidence of Bigler’s experimentation with collage, as well as its influence on Wayne State’s artistic culture during the 1950s and 60s; as an educator, Bigler notably embraced collagist practices for several years, as “collage was kind of sweeping around and always kind of coming in.”(5) Perhaps this collage was created in conversation with her pedagogy or as a long-term result of it.
Yet, there is a further intensity about this work – a certain urgency – that suggests a tension more intimate than formalism allows. Her daughter remembers her as a “feisty woman,”(6) and a look at some of her other collage works in the collection reveals a potential play with gender and social expectation.(7) Perhaps here, a traditionally ‘feminine’ palette was emboldened by Bigler (her color choices don’t whisper, but shout) and perhaps the mass media choices speak to a reworking of content geared towards or about women. One visible term stessa works as a feminine adjective or pronoun to mean ‘herself;’ another visible phrase is anno…minati… In Latin, anno domini is ‘year of our lord,’ and anno dominati could be translated as ‘year dominated’ or ‘year of our domination.’ If there is a feminist theme to this work, then the artist herself is perhaps reacting to the persistence of this gendered dynamic. Though her more traditional watercolor works endure in craft discourse and public memory, such collages highlight yet another social dimension of her practice.
Written by Sarah Teppen
1https://www.newspapers.com/article/detroit-free-press/30627323/
2https://www.newspapers.com/article/detroit-free-press/30627285/
3https://mwcsart1946.com/history/
4https://www.newspapers.com/article/detroit-free-press/30627323/
5https://www.aaa.si.edu/download_pdf_transcript/ajax?record_id=edanmdm- AAADCD_oh_212146
6 https://www.newspapers.com/article/detroit-free-press/30627323/
7https://artcollection.wayne.edu/picture-of-the-week/mary-jane-bigler-diva-1975- watercolor-and-collage-83504
