ELIZABETH LAYTON: DRAWING ON LIFE
Despite its humorous elements (including a perplexed-looking woman who recalls Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?) this drawing–made when Layton was 74–depressed me. I wanted to deny its truthfulness; I preferred not to see that its entrapped woman had been done in by her own shortcomings as well as by the actions (or inaction) of other women. All of Layton’s best drawings display this same sort of unflinching honesty, both in the way they’re made–anchored in the act of observation–and in their analysis of personal and social issues, including women’s rights, male and female relationships, aging, AIDS, hunger, capital punishment, censorship, and racism.
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Yet, as drawings like American Gothic (1978) show, Layton didn’t see herself exclusively as a victim. In her wry takeoff on Grant Wood’s familiar painting she looks like one of the beleaguered but tough farm women who populate Flannery O’Connor’s short stories. Pinning the viewer with a fierce stare, she grasps a giant flatware fork in one hand and a shoulder bag, screwdriver, and Pall Mall cigarette in the other. She wears blue jeans and has an adjustable wrench tucked into a side pocket while her husband stands meekly at her side in the attitude of an adoring puppy, wearing a frilly pink apron.
