A Clown, Some Colors, A Doll, Her Stories, A Song, A Moonlit Cove
Ellen Phelan
American, born 1943
1996
A hand-enhanced photogravure from an illustrated book in which Ellen Phelan gathers dolls, clowns, and masked heads to probe childhood memory, storytelling, and the uneasy border between play and loss.
You first notice a smoky, photograph‑like field punctuated with soft pastels and double‑outlined figures—painted smiles and blank eyes, a naked doll with a dark socket, and overlapping silhouettes that make the toys feel both intimate and ghostly.
By mixing photogravure with hand additions and sequencing these images in a book, Phelan bridges printmaking and narrative art to treat everyday objects as carriers of layered, ambivalent memory rather than straightforward nostalgia.
Medium
Illustrated book with 13 photogravures (three with hand additions) and one supplementary photogravure with hand additions
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Linda Barth Goldstein
Accession
247.1996.A-B
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
