The Delicate World of Josefine Allmayer: Papercuts from the Permanent Collection

Austrian artist Josefine Allmayer was born in a small town near Vienna in 1904. Allmayer’s father taught her the art of psaligraphy, or papercut silhouettes, when she was a child. The works in this exhibition feature enchanting renditions of life along the Danube River, painstakingly cut from tissue-thin papers with scissors. In these delicate vignettes, the mundane and the fantastical collide: weary travelers trudge through snowy landscapes, goatherds serenade their flocks, and diminutive gnomes smoke pipes in the company of snails. Also included is a charming portrait series of such composers as Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and Strauss. This exhibition is organized as a historical counterpart to the contemporary silhouettes featured in Emancipating the Past: Kara Walker’s Tales of Slavery and Power.