Dirty Deborah

Silhouetted against a vast northern summer sky, a statuesque Inuit (northern Canadian native) woman, dressed in shorts and boots, casts a watchful glance at a young child whose hand she clasps to steady his uneven steps as they walk together toward a rustic dwelling in the background. Rockwell Kent composed his image to monumentalize the mother, emphasizing her protective strength as she guides the toddler forward--toward a self-sufficient life in a harsh landscape. A poignant image of the parent-child relationship, it presents the universal theme of a young child learning to walk as a quietly heroic event. Dirty Deborah was a product of Kent's 1931-32 sojourn in Greenland, and its incongruous title probably refers to the derogatory outlook of Greenland's Danish governing authorities toward the region's native inhabitants. As in his painting Summer, Greenland (TF 1998.2), Kent ironically contrasts the patronizing attitude of outsiders with the epic reality of the land and its people, whom the artist greatly admired.

Never formally trained in printmaking techniques, Kent learned lithography from skilled master printers, notably George Miller of New York, with whom he worked to make this print. Over his career, Kent made more than eighty lithographs, including both book illustrations and stand-alone artworks.

Visages de l'Amérique: de George Washington à Marilyn Monroe (Faces of America: From George Washington to Marilyn Monroe), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venues: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2004 (on exhibit partial run: April 1–May 3, 2004 and July 5–October 31, 2004). [exh. cat.]

Terra Collection-in-Residence, Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology, Oxford, United Kingdom, September 15, 2022–September 30, 2026.

  

Kent, Rockwell. Salamina. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1935. [an impression of this print was reproduced in brick red in this book about Greenland]

Jones, Dan Burne. The Prints of Rockwell Kent: A Catalogue Raisonné. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1975. No. 96, p. 98.