Curated by Dr. Rebecca VanDiver, associate professor of African American art at Vanderbilt University, Carving a New Tradition showcases a selection of recent prints and mixed-media artwork from the studio of the Arkansas-born, Baltimore-based painter and printmaker LaToya M. Hobbs. Hobbs is a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a founding member of Black Women of Print, an artistic collective aimed at rendering the work of Black women printmakers—past, present, and future—visible.
Her monumental woodcarving Carving Out Time anchors this exhibition and highlights her ongoing explorations of Black womanhood, identity, and artistic legacy that reverberate through the other artworks on view. Hobbs honors the rich traditions of printmaking and her Black artistic foremothers while pushing medium’s boundaries, exhibiting the matrix as object and incorporating mixed-media elements.
Carving a New Tradition: The Art of LaToya M. Hobbs is organized by the Frist Art Museum with Dr. Rebecca VanDiver, associate professor of African American art at Vanderbilt University.
Supporting sponsors
Clay Blevins
Supported in part by
Gordon CAP Gallery Fund
The Frist Art Museum is supported in part by
Exhibition gallery
LaToya Hobbs. Erin and Anyah with Hydrangeas, 2023. Acrylic and collage on carved wood panel; 48 x 60 in. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Ariston Jacks
LaToya Hobbs. Carving Out Time (detail), 2020–21. Oil-based printing ink and acrylic paint on 15 carved cherry plywood panels; 96 x 720 in. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Anonymous Gift; and Art Fund established with exchange funds from gifts of Dr. and Mrs. Edgar F. Berman, Equitable Bank, N.A., Geoffrey Gates, Sandra O. Moose, National Endowment for the Arts, Lawrence Rubin, Philip M. Stern, and Alan J. Zakon; BMA 2022.11. Image courtesy of The Baltimore Museum of Art
LaToya Hobbs. Unbothered, 2023. Woodcut on Rieves BFK cotton paper; 24 x 32 1/4 in. Courtesy of the artist
LaToya M. Hobbs. Flourish, 2023. Acrylic on carved wood panel; 96 x 96 x 2 1/2 in. Courtesy of the artist
LaToya M. Hobbs. A Moment of Care, 2023. Woodcut; 32 1/4 x 24 in. Courtesy of the artist
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