1
_ID%3D737
Painting
Untitled (Self-portrait)
Josephine Tota, 1911 - 1996
Tota, Josephine
United States
1910 - 1996
Female
16 1/8 x 9 3/4 in. (41 x 24.8 cm)
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board
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overall
frame
Egg tempera
Egg tempera
1987
1987
1987
Painting
Born in Italy, Josephine Tota moved to Rochester with her family in 1920. Like many immigrants in the region, Tota and family members worked in the garment industry. After raising her daughter and retiring from her job as a seamstress, Tota spent her days painting in the privacy of her apartment on Highland Avenue.
The paintings Tota made in her last decade frequently address the internal conflicts and anxieties that confronted her throughout her life. This self-portrait relates to an experience in 1984, when her eyesight was threatened from complications during cataract surgery. The boxed-in figure evokes her overwhelming feelings of suffocating isolation and confinement. The starlight pattern of the surrounding border echoes the visual effects caused by the cataracts whenever she looked at light.
[Hawks Gallery reinstallation, summer 2019]
lower right
Rosamond Tota
1997.2
item
Memorial Art Gallery
9/8/1999
97.2SL1
slide
2 x 2
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glossy
8x10
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negative
4x5
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97.2DI1
digital image
5/9/2002
http://127.0.0.1:5000/Media/images/Inventory pictures/97.2_I1.jpg
97.2DI#2
digital image
8/26/2010
http://127.0.0.1:5000/Media/images/97.2_A1.jpg
97.2DI#3
digital image
1/6/2016
http://127.0.0.1:5000/Media/images/97.2_A2.jpg