Mother and Child

Artist Daisy Youngblood American, born 1945

Date1987

MediumLow-fire clay and wood

Dimensions16 x 5 1/2 x 4 in. (40.6 x 14 x 10.2 cm)

ClassificationsSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the William R. Roberson Jr. and Frances M. Roberson Endowed Fund for North Carolina Art, the Art Trust Endowment, and the Deal Foundation

Object number2005.16

On View

On view

Label Text
A native of Asheville, North Carolina, Daisy Youngblood is a figurative sculptor whose major body of work has focused on the human form and the animal world. Her skillful depictions provide just enough physical information to capture the most profound and true characteristics of her subjects. Her sculptural shorthand results in works of art that have an ageless, archetypal quality.

Youngblood's small-scale sculpture, miniature in comparison to its real-life counterpart, resonates with a power and an emotion that go far beyond its physical size. Only sixteen inches tall, Mother and Child is a portrait saturated with a tremendous sense of loss and sorrow, fragility and tenderness. The feeling of vulnerability conveyed by the work is further emphasized by the mother's fragmented body, which is cut off just below the knees and has a wooden stick in place of one arm. The unglazed, scorched clay used to form the figures adds to the air of tentativeness that emanates from this sculptural pair. But there is also a strong sense of resilience in the mother's forthright stare and the power of love conveyed by the close connection of the child to the mother's body, cradled in her arm and leaning on her chest.

In describing her inspiration for making this work, Daisy Youngblood has said, "I had seen a photograph of an Amazonian woman holding her child. Her world, her jungle, was being destroyed, but she stood there holding such life, standing firm in the presence of awesome fear and love."
[L. Dougherty, 2006]ProvenanceCreated 1987; collection of the artist; private collection; [the artist and McKee Gallery, NY]; sold to NCMA, 2005.
Published ReferencesDaisy Youngblood: A Selection of Works 1975-2003 (exhibition catalogue) (New York: McKee Gallery, 2004), no. 7, illus. (color) unnumbered page.

Jan Riley, "New York, Daisy Youngblood, McKee Gallery," Sculpture Magazine 23, no. 10 (December 2004), briefly discussed 72.

"New Acquisitions: Sculpture, Photography and Painting," Preview: The Magazine of the North Carolina Museum of Art (March/April 2006), discussed 6, illus. (color) 7.

Linda J. Dougherty, entry for Mother and Child, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2010), 526, illus. (color) 527.

Caroline M. Rocheleau, “Sacred Motherhood: Mother-and-Child Representations from the Permanent Collection,” in North Carolina Museum of Art Preview (Summer 2014), mentioned 21.
Exhibition HistoryNew York, NY, McKee Gallery, "Daisy Youngblood: A Selection of Works 1975-2003," April 17-May 29, 2004, no. 7, illus. (color) unnumbered page.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Sacred Motherhood: Mother-and-Child Representations from the Permanent Collection,” May 4–December 7, 2014.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Partial Figure," February 14-August 23, 2026. Object Rights Statement

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