On a recent early spring afternoon, pedestrians on Manhattan’s East 72nd Street moved quickly: children walked home from school, workers shuffled home from work, and locals from the Upper East Side took their dogs for brisk walks. In typical New York fashion, few people slowed to look at the ground, but beneath their feet the signatures of eight historic female artists were etched in concrete.
Artist Sarah Peter transformed the otherwise modest sidewalk in front of her home, at 72nd between Second and Third Avenues, in 1999. During a renovation, she commissioned calligrapher Barry Morentz to transpose the artists’ signatures Angelica Kauffman , Isabel Bishop, Camille Claudel, Sofonisba Anguissola, Mary Cassatt, Gwen John, Berthe Morisot and Rosa Bonheur in wet cement.
“I wanted to slow down and say, ‘These are names we should all know,'” Peter said. Hyperallergic. “We know van Gogh, we know Gauguin, we know van Dyck, we know Vermeer.” Peter had considered the work of the guerrilla girls and wanted to highlight female artists too often overshadowed by their male contemporaries. The women she chose lived and worked from the 16th to the 20th century.
It took Morentz about an hour to transpose the names to the sidewalk. “You have time,” Peter said. “If you make a mistake, you can erase it.” Peter remembered the contractors who had crowded in to admire Morentz’s work.
“It was so cool to watch,” she said.
In the 24 years since Morentz carved the signatures, Peter says only one person has recognized the easy-to-miss tribute: an art teacher walking past who had stopped to read the names inscribed in the concrete. . When people ask her what the engravings mean, she points to Mary Cassatt as a clue. “Because she’s the best known,” Peter said.
As for his favorite signature, Peter has a soft spot for that of Gwen John, a Welsh painter who lived in France and created quietly profound portraits of herself and other women.
“But these are all artists that I deeply admire,” Peter said.
