Coming Out
1979
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
color lithograph on natural Japon nacré
Dimensions
image: 41.91 × 52.71 cm (16 1/2 × 20 3/4 in.) sheet: 43.82 × 54.93 cm (17 1/4 × 21 5/8 in.)
Classification
Portfolio
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Joan Palevsky
Accession Number
1981.7.10
Art Historical Context
**Coming Out** (1979) is a striking color lithograph by June, a pioneering American printmaker and feminist artist1918–2011). Created on natural Japon nacré luxurious Japanese paper with a subtle-of-pearl sheen medium enhances the vibrancy and depth of the colors, giving the work a luminous, tactile quality prized in fine art prints. Measuring 41.91 × 52.71 cm, it exemplifies Wayne's mastery of lithography, a technique she advanced through her leadership at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in the 1960s and '70s, democratizing complex color printing. The title *Coming Out* evokes themes of em...
About the Artist
June Wayne
June Wayne (1918–2011) was a pioneering American printmaker, painter, tapestry innovator, and activist whose self-taught brilliance reshaped modern lithography and championed women in the arts. Born June Claire Kline on March 7, 1918, in Chicago to single mother Dorothy Kline—a fiercely independent Russian Jewish immigrant who fled pogroms—Wayne dropped out of high school at 15 to pursue art. Her ...