Curator Talk: "Scheherazade and Her Sisters"

"One Thousand and One Nights" is the story of Scheherazade who, threatened with death by King Shahryar, keeps herself alive by telling one fascinating tale after another, stopping at a cliffhanger each night so the king would want to hear the rest. Her resolve and wit, as well as her beauty, were celebrated in literature and the visual arts, especially in the late 19th century.
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This exhibition of Gilded Age art (1870s-early 1900s), brings together idealized and sometimes misogynistic depictions of women like Scheherazade - herself often represented as an Orientalist fantasy - and places them next to the real working women of the Gilded Age, who survived in a world far removed from the Orientalist dreams and supernatural settings popular with the artists of the time. In doing so, it captures the often-felt conflict of many Gilded Age women: their desire to break free from traditional gender roles and the limits placed on them by society.⁣
See the works up close here: www.crockerart...
Purchase the exhibition catalog for "Scheherazade and Her Sisters" by emailing the Museum Store at [e-mail]. Catalogs are $9.95 and ship to anywhere in the United States. Curbside pickup available by appointment.