The haunting power of silhouettes

By E.P. | NEW YORK

WHEN TONI MORRISON, a Nobel- and Pulitzer-prize winning chronicler of African-American life, died in August 2019, the New Yorker sought a fitting artwork to put on the cover. “The goal...was not just a resemblance but something that emotionally evokes her person, because Morrison is deeply complex,” said Françoise Mouly, the magazine’s art editor. He approached Kara Walker, an American artist celebrated for prints and silhouettes which, much like Morrison’s writing, address the country’s history of slavery and violence. After experimenting with clay, pastels and watercolour, Ms Walker created a bold cut-paper artwork of the writer’s face in profile. “I’m no portraitist,” she said. “But I am a shadow maker.”

“Quiet As It’s Kept”, as the piece is called, is part of an ambitious exhibition at the New-York Historical Society Museum and Library. “In Profile: A Look at Silhouettes” is a survey of the art form, ranging from quaint likenesses of Georgian aristocrats to modern logos. The first silhouette is said to have been produced by Dibutades, a Corinthian maid who, according to Pliny the Elder, traced the outline of her lover’s shadow on the wall as he slept. But it was one of Louis XV’s stingy finance ministers who gave the format its name: to do something à la Silhouette was to do it on the cheap.