Existing comment:
May Stevens
born Boston, MA 1924
Big Daddy Paper Doll
1970
acrylic on canvas
Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. S. Zachary Swidler, 75.73
In paintings from 1967 to 1976, Stevens created a character she called Big Daddy based on a photograph of her father. Big Daddy came to represent patriarchal authority, white supremacy, and unquestioning patriotism rolled into one. Her series depicts him as a self-satisfied, late-middle-aged man with a pasty white complexion and bald, phallic head. In Big Daddy Paper Doll, he sits at center, flanked by outfits representing an executioner, a soldier, a police officer, and a butcher. Arms smugly crossed and a bulldog perched in his lap, Big Daddy embodies the threat of state surveillance and violence, both at home and abroad. |