"I paint life, and life is not always beautiful" - Ellen Powell Tiberino

Museum Practicum: Objective Blog, The African American Museum in Philadelphia 

Oktavia LaBarge, November 20, 2013

Title: The Listeners

Year: Unknown

Material: Pen ink on paper

Creator: Ellen Powell Tiberino

Collection: Unknown

This is a work of art titled, The Listeners, created by Ellen Powell Tiberino.  This work of art is from the African American Museum in Philadelphia in a changing exhibition space, which focuses on the artwork of the Tiberino family and their friends.  The Tiberino family are a family of artists from the Philadelphia area.  Ellen Powell Tiberino attended the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts and worked to express her own self-identity, death, alienation, as well as the African American and human experience.

This work by Ellen Powell Tiberino is important to artists working in Philadelphia, as well as, African American women.  Her work addresses difficult issues that many people must face in their life.  Tiberino died in 1992 after battling cancer for fourteen years. While battling cancer, she continued to create artwork.  After her passing, the Ellen Powell

Art during her sickness

Tiberino Memorial Museum of Contemporary American Art was created in West Philadelphia. 

This object is on display in the African American Museum in, “The Unflinching Eye: Works of the Tiberino Family Circle,” exhibition.  For the family it was like a memorial for Ellen Powell Tiberino.  She had a show at the African American Museum when they first opened in 1976.  The entire Tiberino family is made up of different types of artists.  The exhibition reveals the progression of the family as artists as well as their friends and mentors.  The art exhibited in the gallery is made up of a variety of mediums and themes.  Yet, for the African American Museum, this exhibition exemplifies the African American experience in Philadelphia over the past fifty years.  It is not stated where The Listeners work is from, yet one can only assume it is from the Tiberino’s museum.  

To enter “The Unflinching Eye: Works of the Tiberino Family Circle,” visitors must ascend up four different ramps to each the gallery floor.  On the way up the ramps, the visitor is confronted with two different works by the Tiberino family

One of the works on the ramp

members. Having visitors see these two works, before entering the gallery, entices them to walk to see more. Once they have reached the top of the ramp a quote is projected on one wall, while the adjacent wall has a slide show of images from the Tiberino house. Next to the quote, is a label which describes the ideas of the space and the Tiberino space.  Although, there is no descriptive labels next to many of the objects in the gallery space, many of the works speak for themselves.

As one continues to walk inside the space, there is a doorway to the rest of the gallery.  On the wall of the doorway is the work, The Listeners.  The work reveals the artistic ideas of Ellen Powell Tiberino, with her short brush strokes and thick layers of paint.  What drew me to this image are the vibrance of colors that are used throughout the image.  There are six women depicted in the work, yet their faces almost blend into the background.  When one considers depicting skin tones in color, it is almost impossible to only use one color.  This takes this idea to the other side of the spectrum, where the faces have a spectrum of all of the colors on the rainbow.  

Although, The Listeners piece was separated by being placed outside of the gallery space, her style is evident.  As a visitor continues into the gallery space, the work of Ellen Powell Tiberino is easy to recognize due to her use of short brush, pen, and pencil strokes. It was amazing to be able to see how she was able to depict complicated features of people, such as, curly hair, with a simplified stroke. However, the work is not laid out as a timeline.  In the presentation of her work, the work that she was creating during her battle with cancer is placed in the center.  This was somewhat confusing to understanding her work as a progression over time. 

Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci

If one would like to learn more about the Ellen Powell Tiberino or the Tiberino family, they may consider visiting The Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum or visiting the exhibition at the African American Museum.  In addition, they may consider researching African American female artists.  Often, in art history, only the “geniuses” are remembered, such as Pablo Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci.  If one were to research African American female artists they would be surprised to learn about the variety of artists who are all working to address similar and different themes.  

Someone who might not be interested in The Listener would be someone who is not interested in the abstraction.  Although Ellen Powell Tiberino does an excellent job presenting realism in art, The Listener, is a more abstract image.  They would probably not understand why Tiberino incorporated such a large number of colors into the depictions of people.  In addition, someone who is not interested in learning about the African American experience through art would probably not enjoy this museum, let alone, the gallery.

To further engage visitors with this object, I would move it to a more prevalent location in the gallery.  Currently, it is placed next to a doorway and at a separate exit to the gallery, causing many visitors to walk past the work.  The African American Museum may also consider rearranging the work by Ellen Powell Tiberino in order to create a precise timeline of events. In addition, the museum could invite the Tiberino family to interpret this specific piece of work, since currently there is no description of the work.