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Pele deLappe, 1916-2007
Pele deLappe shared with many women artists of her generation the challenge of maintaining an artistic career while raising children and making a living. This 1938 graphite drawing, conveying both her beauty and her self-assurance, asserts an auspicious beginning. The San Francisco-born deLappe met Diego Rivera and became a sketching companion of his wife, Frida Kahlo. In the early 1930s, deLappe studied at the Art Students League in New York City, but she returned to San Francisco in 1934, planning to concentrate on social-realist themes. Her style, however, reflected the influence of the Mexican muralists, including Rivera and her close friend David Alfaro Siqueiros, more than the quick-sketch approach of her New York compatriots. Her lithographs of the 1930s had a muralist's sensibility, with simplified compositions, broad planes, low viewpoints, and heroic figural forms. This statically posed and sharply outlined self- portrait shares a similar monumentality.
Graphite on paper, 1938 |