The hollow eye sockets in Daisy Youngblood's Elephant with Tusks suggest that the animal’s body is a vessel that might be occupied by some other presence. The close spiritual connection between animal and human worlds is crucial to her work. Her naturalistic color palette communicates, as she has written, a "strong feeling of connectedness to the world of ancient art." Although Youngblood attributes masculine characteristics to some animals, such as horses and goats, elephant heads are, for her, distinctly feminine: "I saw the image of a woman's body—ears as hands on hips, eyes as breasts—in the head of an African elephant."

Gallery label from

Against the Grain: Contemporary Art from the Edward R. Broida Collection, May 3–July 10, 2006.

Medium Low fire clay and paint
Dimensions 18 1/4 x 14 1/2 x 5 1/2" (46.4 x 36.8 x 14 cm)
Credit Gift of Edward R. Broida
Object number 820.2005
Department Painting & Sculpture

Explore more

All works from 1990–2000 →

From MoMA Design Store

Installation views

We have identified this work in the following photos from our exhibition history.

How we identified these works
In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

If you notice an error, please contact us at [email protected].
Licensing
To reproduce installation views, please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations). You will need to include the object identification number found in the caption.
Feedback
This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].

Licensing

Artwork or archival images

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

Audio and film clips

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit Circulating Film and Video Library.

Text from a publication or the archives

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please fill out this feedback form.