Chicago artist Ann Toebbe's latest collage paintings were inspired by her husband's grandmother, Mary Bard's 1949 book The Doctor Wears Three Faces about the expectations and isolation of being a doctor's wife, which was made into the movie Mother Didn't Tell Me. Herself a mother of two, Toebbe began thinking about the role of women within the home, then and now, and the ongoing centrality of the kitchen within domestic life. Toebbe's exhibition debuts at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, on October 7, 2011 during First Fridays and runs through October 30. After ten years, Toebbe is the final artist of the UBS 12 x 12: New Artists/New Work series at the MCA before it evolves into the Chicago Works program in November.
Comprised of three large-scale collage paintings made of individually cut and painted pieces of paper --The Doctor's Wife (7 x 10 ft), The Grocer's Wife (6 x 8 ft), and The Photo Engraver's Wife (6 x 8 ft) -- Toebbe's exhibit is based on conversations she had with her mother, mother-in-law, and step-mother-in-law centered on fond memories of their childhood kitchens, and the difficulties of being married and a mother in the 1940s and 50s. They each wrote a short text and made a drawing describing their mother's kitchen, which Toebbe uses as the basis of her paintings. Her vivid visions of domestic spaces bring to life often overlooked details of the environments of daily life, which become the cornerstone of memories. They also reflect issues of class difference and a shared material culture. The disorienting, flattened perspective derives from her study of Russian icon painting, Cubism, and folk art.
Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Toebbe received a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and her MFA from Yale University, and now resides in Chicago. Toebbe's work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Chicago, New York, Boston, Cincinnati, and San Francisco, among others.
