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Toni Morrison 1931–2019
Toni Morrison's first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young African American girl who longs for acceptance. With the publication of each new work, Morrison's fan base and critical acclaim grew. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Song of Solomon (1977), the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987), the Nobel Prize for Literature (1993), and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2012). Morrison is primarily remembered as a fiction writer, but she also published works of nonfiction, such as Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992), a provocative reassessment of the American literary canon.
During her years as a professor at Princeton University, Morrison delivered many memorable lectures. Speaking to students in 2005, she told them: "From my point of view your life is already artful -- waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art." This painting was the first of many that Ian and Annette Cumming commissioned from Robert McCurdy.
Robert McCurdy (born 1952)
Oil on canvas, 2006
Gift of Ian M. and Annette P. Cumming |