Exhibition - Peggy Bacon: Biting, never Bitter

Exploring the humor and sharp wit of one of the most insightful visual and literary artists of the 20th century.

On view at the Portland Museum of Art June 14, 2024, through February 2, 2025, Biting, never Bitter represents a timely and noteworthy solo presentation of Peggy Bacon’s wry observations of her social, professional, and artistic networks during the 1920s and 1930s. Featuring more than 60 prints, drawings, paintings, and pastels, Peggy Bacon: Biting, never Bitter is a testament to her enduring influence on the artistic landscapes in Maine, New York, and beyond.

Born in Ridgefield, Connecticut, in 1895, Peggy Bacon (1895 - 1987) began her formal art education in 1913 at the School of Applied Arts for Women in New York, and later at the Art Students League of New York until 1920, receiving instruction from Kenneth Hayes Miller and prominent Ashcan School artists John Sloan and George Bellows. Bacon built upon the Ashcan School’s portrayals of the grit and reality of everyday life, bringing her own sharp humor and distinctively modern style to subjects in print, paint, and word.  

Biting, never Bitter is particularly focused on Bacon’s time as a student at the Art Students League of New York, with the intention of highlighting this formative period in her career when the artist first discovered drypoint printmakinga favorite technique throughout her lifetime and the medium for which she is best known today. Indeed, most of Bacon’s early work provides important insights into the social culture of the League at that time, drawn from her own experiences. Many of these documentary prints, often bearing a hint of humor, foreshadow what would become a widely recognized aspect of her artistic career: caricature and cartoon. The artist’s first caricatures appeared in the student-produced magazine Bad News, published by Bacon and her peers at the Art Students League in 1918; an original copy of this lively, satirical volume will be featured in the exhibition, along with a variety of replicas for visitors to peruse.

The keen and distinctive tone of Bacon’s work garnered critical acclaim throughout the 1920s and 1930s. As New York World-Telegram writer Howard Cushman observed in 1931: “Her caricature is biting but never bitter,” the phrase that inspires the exhibition title. Taking a cue from the 19th-century French caricaturist Honoré Daumier, Bacon's inflammatory sketches of New York’s art worlddescribed by one critic as “portraits in acid”routinely ignited the pages of the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and others.

In 1934, with support from the Guggenheim Fellowship for Graphic Arts, Bacon turned her satirical gaze toward 39 notable figures from the period, including Franklin Roosevelt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Diego Rivera, Alfred Stieglitzeven Bacon herself. The collection, titled Off with Their Heads!, is one of more than 60 books the artist illustrated in her lifetime, including around 20 that she personally authored. Biting, never Bitter showcases several of Bacon’s first edition publicationsincluding The True Philosopher and Other Cat Tales (1919) and Off with Their Heads!highlighting the breadth and dynamism of her creative work as both artist and author.   

Biting, never Bitter also marks the first solo exhibition of Bacon’s work at the Portland Museum of Art and includes artworks from the PMA’s collection. Bacon had deep and meaningful connections to Maine, having spent her first summer in Ogunquit in 1938, and ultimately settling in Cape Porpoisea small fishing community near Kennebunkportin 1961. 

Peggy Bacon: Biting, never Bitter offers a compelling and satirical window into the social structures of the United States that still hold relevance today, particularly in areas of gender, education, and class. This compelling and witty exhibition presents an opportune moment for visitors to engage with the ideas and issues of Bacon’s time and ours, through an especially sardonic artist’s perspective.