Skip to main contentProvenanceThe artist
Mrs. Joyce Turner Hilkevitch, Chicago, Illinois
Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Chicago, Illinois, 1991 (gift of Mrs. Joyce Turner Hilkevitch)
Exhibition HistoryPublished References
Shelly Terman Canton
(American, 1930–1986)
Mother and Child
1964
Linocut on cream Japanese paper
Image: 17 7/8 x 13 in. (45.4 x 33.0 cm)
Sheet: 25 5/8 x 16 1/2 in. (65.1 x 41.9 cm)
Mat: 30 x 24 in. (76.2 x 61.0 cm)
Sheet: 25 5/8 x 16 1/2 in. (65.1 x 41.9 cm)
Mat: 30 x 24 in. (76.2 x 61.0 cm)
Credit LineTerra Foundation for American Art, Gift of Mrs. Joyce Turner Hilkevitch in memory of Jonathan B. Turner
Object numberC1991.7
SignedIn graphite, lower right: Shelly Canton 64
InterpretationShelly Canton's linocut Mother and Child captures the intimacy of the familial bond in a powerful graphic style of heavy lines and strong contrasts of dense black against the cream of the paper. The mother presses her face into the neck of the small baby cradled tenderly in her large, creased hands. Her lined face, downcast eyes, and ragged hair suggest both suffering and a parent's selfless instinctual attentiveness to her offspring. To focus attention fully on the closely bonded pair, Canton framed them close up to the picture plane, cropping the top of the mother's head and leaving the background blank except for a pattern of narrow swirling lines.
Canton was an accomplished printmaker--and a mother herself--by the time she made Mother and Child. The intimate pose of the two figures pressed together recalls American expatriate artist Mary Cassatt's print Maternal Caress (TF 1994.5), one of her many treatments of this universal theme. Canton's distinctive graphic style, however, owes more to her study of Japanese woodcut prints, in which forms are flattened and simplified, and to the prints of such twentieth-century American artists as Leonard Baskin (1922-2000).
In 1964, Mother and Child was selected as the "print-of-the-year" at the annual Ravinia Music Festival in Ravinia, just north of Chicago, and was featured in the Chicago Tribune newspaper. The edition of one hundred impressions of the linocut was intended to last the entire summer season of the festival, but the prints sold out in the first two days.
Canton was an accomplished printmaker--and a mother herself--by the time she made Mother and Child. The intimate pose of the two figures pressed together recalls American expatriate artist Mary Cassatt's print Maternal Caress (TF 1994.5), one of her many treatments of this universal theme. Canton's distinctive graphic style, however, owes more to her study of Japanese woodcut prints, in which forms are flattened and simplified, and to the prints of such twentieth-century American artists as Leonard Baskin (1922-2000).
In 1964, Mother and Child was selected as the "print-of-the-year" at the annual Ravinia Music Festival in Ravinia, just north of Chicago, and was featured in the Chicago Tribune newspaper. The edition of one hundred impressions of the linocut was intended to last the entire summer season of the festival, but the prints sold out in the first two days.
Mrs. Joyce Turner Hilkevitch, Chicago, Illinois
Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Chicago, Illinois, 1991 (gift of Mrs. Joyce Turner Hilkevitch)
Exhibition History
Domestic Bliss: Family Life in America, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 12–June 22, 1997.
Figures and Forms: Selections from the Terra Foundation for the Arts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 9–July 9, 2000.
On Process: The American Print, Technique Examined, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, January 13–March 2, 2001.
(Re)Presenting Women, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 16, 2001–January 13, 2002.
Terra Collection-in-Residence, Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology, Oxford, United Kingdom, September 15, 2022–September 30, 2026.
Figures and Forms: Selections from the Terra Foundation for the Arts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 9–July 9, 2000.
On Process: The American Print, Technique Examined, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, January 13–March 2, 2001.
(Re)Presenting Women, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 16, 2001–January 13, 2002.
Terra Collection-in-Residence, Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology, Oxford, United Kingdom, September 15, 2022–September 30, 2026.
"Art Notes." Chicago Tribune (1964). Ill.