The
fine art world has a reputation for being about as receptive to middle-aged
women as Hollywood producers. Yet, somehow both Carmen Herrera and Elizabeth
Murray made their marks and had their greatest career highlights late in life.
In the case of Herrera, it truly was a case perseverance winning out in the
end. Their lives and bodies of work are surveyed in Alison Klayman’s half-hour The 100 Years Show (trailer here) and Kristi Zea’s hour-long Everybody Knows . . . Elizabeth Murray (trailer here), which screen
together as a double bill opening this Wednesday at Film Forum.
Carmen
Herrera is represented by the Lisson Gallery, which also handles the work of Ai
Weiwei, the subject of Klayman’s outstanding prior documentary, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry. Herrera’s work
has been collected by MoMA, the Hirschhorn, and the Tate Modern. Her first solo
show at the Whitney closes tomorrow. That all sounds quite prestigious, but
what makes it truly impressive is it all started to finally happen for Herrera
during her late nineties. Although she was very much a part of the Paris art
scene in the late 1940s and early 1950s, she was always overlooked in favor of
her male colleagues. However, she had one important supporter: her beloved late
husband Jesse Loewenthal, who never stopped supporting her artistic ambitions.
Herrera
lived long enough to enjoy her belated recognition, notably outlasting Fidel
Castro in her native Cuba. Although neither Klayman or Herrera belabor politics
in 100 Years, she briefly discusses
her family’s early support for the revolution against Battista and their change
of heart when her brother was arrested by Castro’s secret police. She really
has led an epic life, so it is nice to see the final chapters provide some
pay-off.
In
contrast, the narrative that unfolds in Zea’s Everybody Knows is more conventional. Murray initially struggled to
gain traction in the male-dominated gallery world, but when Paula Cooper
started showing her, it gave Murray a level of prominence and stability that
allowed her to be a full-time professional artist. To her credit, Murray also
seems to have been a reasonable conscientious parent during that time as well.
Nonetheless, honors like Murray’s solo MoMA retrospective came late in life—really,
just in the nick of time.