Man of Sorrows
Marion Perkins
Man of Sorrows by Marion Perkins
"This head of Christ," the artist said, "is an acid test of American democracy."
Portraits That Look Back
In the 1950s, Marion Perkins was one of Chicago's foremost sculptors. He participated in nearly one dozen invitational exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1942 to 1957 and received three awards of distinction. His career was capped by the museum's 1951 purchase of one of his most extraordinary pieces, Man of Sorrows. This sculpture is indeed powerful, but its emotional intensity is not achieved through brute force of carving or any "primitivizing" influence. Rather, it succeeds through its brilliant balance of exaggeration and restraint. Its sheer physical presence is conveyed through the impressive bulk of the marble block—often scavenged from abandoned buildings. The head's simplified, protruding eyes are shut tight; the pursed lips are both hidden and defined by a short stubby beard; the hair is veined with smoothly carved thorns. Christ's contained expression of agony is arresting.
Inscription: signed and dated on back, chiseled into stone: "MP 50"
44.4 × 25.4 × 25.4 cm (17 1/2 × 10 × 10 in.)
Pauline Palmer Prize Fund
C. J. Bullict, "Student Takes Highest Chicago Honors," The Art Digest (June 1, 1951): 12 (ill.).
Marion Perkins, Problems of the Black Artist (Chicago: Free Black Press, 1971), ill. cover.
Andrew Patner, "Breaking Barriers: A Chicago Artist's Posthumous Acclaim," Chicago Sun-Times, October 24, 1999, 6E (ill.).
Daniel Schulman, "Marion Perkins: A Chicago Sculptor Rediscovered," Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 24, 2 (1999), 220–243, figs. 1, 21.
Susan F. Rossen, "Introduction," Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 24, 2 (1999), 141.
Julia Perkins, Michael Flug, and David Lusenhof, eds., "to see reality in a new light": The Art and Activism of Marion Perkins, exh. cat. (Chicago: Vivian G. Harsh Society and Third World Press, 2013), 28 (ill.), 29.
Jordan Carter and Sarah Kelly Oehler, "Black Art Matters to This Prominent Museum," interview by Wendy Altschuler, Forbes, Jun 8, 2020, https://forbes.com/sites/wendyaltschuler/2020/06/08/black-art-matters-to-this-prominent-museum.
Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, 55th Annual Exhibition, Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, May 31–Jul 8, 1951, cat. 130 (ill.).
New York, The Downtown Gallery, Artists of Chicago, Sep 14–Oct 2, 1954, cat. 28; 1020 Art Center, Chicago, Illinois, Oct 15–Nov 15, 1954, cat. 30.
Highland Park, IL, Willet House, Week of Art in Highland Park, Feb 2–Mar 1, 1959.
Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, Art in Illinois, In Honor of the Illinois Sesquicentennial, Jun 15– Sep 8, 1968, checklist only.
Springfield, Illinois, Illinois State Museum, Painters and Sculptors in Illinois: 1820–1945, Oct 30–Dec 12, 1971; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois, Feb 6–27, 1972; Lakeview Center for the Arts and Sciences, Peoria, Illinois, Mar 10–Apr 16 1972; Chicago Historical Society, Apr 26–Jun 24, 1972, cat. 61 (ill.). Organized by Illinois Arts Council.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Two Centuries of Black American Art, Sep 30–Oct 21, 1976, cat. 138 (ill.); High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, Jan 8– Feb 20, 1977; Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, Texas, Mar 30,–May 15, 1977; The Brooklyn Museum, Jun 25–Aug 21, 1977.
Chicago Public Library Cultural Center, Marion Perkins, Feb 19–Apr 1, 1979, no cat.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois, Art in Chicago, 1945–1995, Nov 16, 1996–Mar 23, 1997, cat. 16 (ill.).
Chicago, Spertus Museum, A Force for Change: African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund, 2 Feb–5 Jun 2009; Allentown Art Museum, Sep 13, 2009–Jan 10, 2010; Montclair Art Museum, Feb 6–Jul 25, 2010 (Chicago only).
Art Institute of Chicago, They Seek a City: Chicago and the Art of Migration, 1910–1950, Mar 3–Jun 3, 2013, cat. 93.
The artist, 1950; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1951.
City Landscape, 1955
Hero Construction, 1958
Excavation, 1950
Figure with Meat, 1954
Greyed Rainbow, 1953
Untitled (Purple, White, and Red), 1953
Chicago, 1950
Harvest Talk, 1953
Ready-to-Wear, 1955
Stuart Davis
Red Yellow Blue White and Black II, 1953
Golden Wings Brushing the Clouds Incarnated from Earthly Wide Star (Chikatsusei Maunkinshi), 1960
Kazuo Shiraga
Two Women's Torsos, 1952
Tanktotem I, 1952