This image is presented as a "thumbnail" because it is protected by copyright. The Brooklyn Museum respects the rights of artists who retain the copyright to their work.
God's Gift to Man
Bessie Harvey
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art
On View:
Bessie Harvey described her art as a collaboration with nature and God. Her anthropomorphic compositions grew from found natural forms in wood foraged in Tennessee, informed by her personal study of African art. In God’s Gift to Man, detailed and individualized women are arranged on top of a visceral red gash. Harvey grapples with Biblical gender edicts demanding women be subservient to men, while evincing the painful frequency and reality of abuse and sexual assault of women by those same men.
MEDIUM
Wood, Paint, Textile, Paper, Plastics, Hair, Metal
DATES
1987
DIMENSIONS
47 × 48 × 26 in., 218 lb. (119.4 × 121.9 × 66 cm, 98.88kg) (show scale)
COLLECTIONS
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art
ACCESSION NUMBER
2018.37.5
CREDIT LINE
Gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation from the William S. Arnett Collection, 2018
EXHIBITIONS
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
Bessie Harvey (American, 1929–1994). God's Gift to Man, 1987. Wood, Paint, Textile, Paper, Plastics, Hair, Metal, 47 × 48 × 26 in., 218 lb. (119.4 × 121.9 × 66 cm, 98.88kg). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation from the William S. Arnett Collection, 2018, 2018.37.5. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: , CUR.2018.37.5.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, CUR.2018.37.5.jpg., 2018
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT
© artist or artist's estate
Copyright for this work may be controlled by the artist, the artist's estate, or other rights holders. A more detailed analysis of its rights history may, however, place it in the public domain.
The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act.
For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch.
For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright.
If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.
![Standing Figure of the Madonna - [UNKNOWN]](https://d1lfxha3ugu3d4.cloudfront.net/images/opencollection/objects/size2_sq/29.1072_bw.jpg)
