This exhibition explores female personifications of the nation state from antiquity through the Enlightenment to today. Through art, figures such as Athena, Roma, Columbia, and Britannia have become deeply embedded in Western cultural history. The adoption and use of these figures raise critical questions: Why did the patriarchal power structures of the Western nation state manifest as female forms, and how have women embodied and perpetuated the complex and often conflicting themes of liberty, justice, imperialism, and nationalism? By investigating how female personifications of the state have simultaneously defined and called into question Western cultural values, Empires of Liberty illustrates how the woman became the nation.

Sponsors:

The exhibition is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Endowment.

Image Credit:

On the Armistice Medal, ’18, 1918, bronze by Charles L. Doman. Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Mark M. Salton, 1978.32.22.a