24.5 x 18.5" framed
Three drawings from the 1990's by Elizabeth Leach Gallery artist Ed Bereal, Miss America, Lost in the U.S.A./Self Portrait, and One Nation Under God Inc., were recently acquired into the Whitney Museum of American Art's permanent collection.
Amid the racial tensions that followed the Watts Rebellion in 1965, Bereal chose to distance himself from the art world for over two decades. During that period, he immersed himself in social justice movements.
Bereal returned to his studio practice in the 1990s to focus largely on politically charged depictions of the present day rendered in graphite and ideas epitomized in his Miss America series. The menacing symbology of Bereal's grimacing, skeletal female figure personifies capitalism, racism and corporate greed, often appearing alongside cultural and political characters with provocative hand-written text.
