Margaret Rose Vendryes (March 16, 1955 – March 29, 2022) was a visual artist, curator, and art historian based in New York.[1][2][3][4]
Early life and education
Vendryes was born on March 16, 1955, in Kingston, Jamaica.[5] She began her studies in costume design before moving to fine art and earning a Bachelor's degree at Amherst College, graduating in 1984.[6] She went on to earn her MA in Art History in 1992 from Tulane University and her PhD from Princeton University in 1997 where she focused on African American art history and was the first Black woman to earn a PhD in art history from Princeton.[5][7][8][9]
From 2000 to 2001 she worked as visiting lecturer for Art & Archaeology and African American Studies at Princeton University. She also worked as associate professor for Modern American and Contemporary Art at City University of New York from 2002 till 2007.[12]
She warned against what she calls "the race-centered approach" to interpreting artwork, the practice of reading the influence of an artist's race into their artwork, as she believed it could limit the interpretation and context of the work and minimize the assessment of their impact on the larger art movements.[13]
In 2009 Vendryes worked as lecturer for African Art at Boston University in Massachusetts.[12]
In 2005 Vendryes began a series of multi-media works within her The African Diva Project, with oil and cold wax on canvas, and more recently, embedded African masks. The series began with a portrait of Donna Summer inspired by her Four Seasons of Love album cover. The imagery juxtaposes and combines portraits of Western pop culture icons with traditional African masks. Because these masks are traditionally worn only by men, she has noted her exploration of power, race, gender and beauty through these works.[9] The project has included many Black American women icons including Aretha Franklin, Grace Jones, and Whitney Houston.[4]
Vendryes was a longtime board member of the Leslie Lohman Museum.[24] Vendryes' death, on March 29, 2022, due to respiratory failure, was announced by the Southeast Queens Artists' Alliance.[25][5]
Childs Gallery in Boston, with whom she had a long history, hosted a memorial exhibit in Vendryes' honor from November 2022-January 2023.[26]
Bibliography
Vendryes, Margaret Rose; Barnett, Lauren; Lawson, R. A.; Lowe, John (2014). The Visual Blues. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: LSU Museum of Art. ISBN9780615878300.
Vendryes, Margaret Rose (2008). Barthé, A Life in Sculpture. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN978-1604730920.
Vendryes, Margaret Rose; Paschall, W. Douglass; Moore, Lewis Tanner; Holton, Curlee Raven (2008). In Search of Missing Masters: The Lewis Tanner Moore Collection of African American Art. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Woodmere Art Museum. ISBN978-1888008227.
Vendryes, Margaret Rose; Rosenblum, Robert; Hill Stoner, Joyce (2006). Factory Work: Warhol, Wyeth and Basquiat. Rockland, ME: Farnsworth. ISBN0918749212.
Sperath, Albert F.; Vendryes, Margaret R.; Jones, Steven H.; King, Eva F. (2000). The Art of Ellis Wilson. Lexington, KE: The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN9780813160474.
Willis, Deborah; Vendryes, Margaret Rose (2001). The Artist Portrait Series: Images of Contemporary African American Artist. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN0809323796.
Fossett, Judith Jackson (1997). Race Consciousness: Reinterpretations for the New Century. New York City: NYU Press. pp. Chapter 9. ASINB00EIFPFE4.
Vendryes, Margaret Rose (1997). Expression and Repression of Identity: Race, Religion, and Sexuality in the Art of American Sculptor Richmond Barthé. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.
