Rachel Rosenthal
Untitled1975

Not on view

Horizontal print combining mirrored black-and-white photographic portraits of a smiling woman, sepia-toned group photographs, a hanging pendant, radiating colored lines, and a row of small geometric symbols along the bottom edge

Artist or Maker: Rachel Rosenthal
United States, Paris, France, 1926–2015, active Los Angeles
Title: Untitled
Date Made: 1975
Medium: Collage of photocopies and gelatin silver print with graphite, colored pencil, and gold-plated metal chain with pendant on paper
Dimensions: Frame: 15 5/8 × 18 3/4 in. (39.69 × 47.63 cm) Sheet: 15 × 18 in. (38.1 × 45.72 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Kate Noonan
Accession Number: M.2022.209.8
Classification: Drawings
Collecting Area: Prints and Drawings
Curatorial Notes: Best remembered for the performance art she staged in Los Angeles, Rachel Rosenthal was a multidisciplinary visual artist who also created drawings, collages, and artist books. In this untitled collage, she explored the strength of her Jewish identity. The center of the work features a Xerox copy of a photograph taken when Rosenthal was a young girl in pre–World War II France, the country of her birth. She is surrounded by her classmates and teachers, and her face is encircled by an actual chain with a Star of David pendant laid on top of the paper. The collage also includes a faded family snapshot below the school image and two identical copies of a photograph of Rosenthal as an adult, now living in America, on either side of the central picture. In these more recent images, the artist looks out confidently at the viewer, clasping the chain around her neck and pressing the hidden Star of David to her heart. The collage can be recognized as a personal entry in Rosenthal’s scrapbook of memories, blending transitory images of the artist from two different times in her life with the actual chain and pendant, a permanent symbol that links these halves together.

Claudine Dixon

2023
Selected Bibliography: Schillo, Eve, and Claudine Dixon. Before You Now: Capturing the Self in Portraiture; Ante Usted: La Captura del Ser en el Retrato. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2024.
Copyright: © Rachel Rosenthal

Rachel Rosenthal
Untitled1975

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Rachel Rosenthal
United States, Paris, France, 1926–2015, active Los Angeles
Title: Untitled
Date Made: 1975
Medium: Collage of photocopies and gelatin silver print with graphite, colored pencil, and gold-plated metal chain with pendant on paper
Dimensions: Frame: 15 5/8 × 18 3/4 in. (39.69 × 47.63 cm) Sheet: 15 × 18 in. (38.1 × 45.72 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Kate Noonan
Accession Number: M.2022.209.8
Classification: Drawings
Collecting Area: Prints and Drawings
Curatorial Notes: Best remembered for the performance art she staged in Los Angeles, Rachel Rosenthal was a multidisciplinary visual artist who also created drawings, collages, and artist books. In this untitled collage, she explored the strength of her Jewish identity. The center of the work features a Xerox copy of a photograph taken when Rosenthal was a young girl in pre–World War II France, the country of her birth. She is surrounded by her classmates and teachers, and her face is encircled by an actual chain with a Star of David pendant laid on top of the paper. The collage also includes a faded family snapshot below the school image and two identical copies of a photograph of Rosenthal as an adult, now living in America, on either side of the central picture. In these more recent images, the artist looks out confidently at the viewer, clasping the chain around her neck and pressing the hidden Star of David to her heart. The collage can be recognized as a personal entry in Rosenthal’s scrapbook of memories, blending transitory images of the artist from two different times in her life with the actual chain and pendant, a permanent symbol that links these halves together.

Claudine Dixon

2023
Selected Bibliography: Schillo, Eve, and Claudine Dixon. Before You Now: Capturing the Self in Portraiture; Ante Usted: La Captura del Ser en el Retrato. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2024.