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Accession #	2017.35
Artist	Emma Amos
Title	Flower Sniffer
Date	1966
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	50 × 50 in. (127 × 127 cm) frame: 51 × 51 × 1 7/8 in. (129.5 × 129.5 × 4.8 cm)
Signed	Signed top right recto
Credit Line	William K. Jacobs, Jr. Fund
Location	American Identities: Inventing American Landscape

Curatorial Remarks: In this self-portrait, Emma Amos holds a small bouquet and gazes out from the frame, perhaps into the circular portal of a mirror or directly at the viewer. The sensitive attention to color, interlocking geometric planes, and suggestion of a flowery aroma express the simple joys found in life’s ordinary moments. Amos conveys a sense of sanctuary and self-determinacy that echoes her own commitment to painting, despite the discrimination she encountered throughout her career. “For me, a Black woman artist,” she said, “to walk into the studio is a political act.”