Rama’s watercolors were deemed “obscene” and censored by the Italian Fascist government when they were first exhibited in Turin in 1945. The northern Italian city was home to an emerging generation of artists, some of whom are represented here. A self-taught artist whose childhood was marked by poverty and trauma, Rama began making eccentric, sexually explicit watercolors in the late 1930s. This example, in a frame chosen by the artist, features four blood-tinted fox stoles dangling above a pair of high heels—fashionable accessories that Rama’s work gleefully derides. Claiming only “the sense of sin” as her muse, she refused close alliance with any one group or style.

Gallery label from

"Collection: 1940s—1970s", 2019

Medium Watercolor on paper
Dimensions 28 1/4 × 18 3/8" (71.8 × 46.7 cm)
Credit Promised gift of Alice and Tom Tisch
Object number PG190.2018
Department Drawings and Prints

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