Childs Gallery
Emily Lombardo: Select Works from The Caprichos
Emily Lombardo: Select Works from The Caprichos
Emily Lombardo
The Caprichos, by Emily Lombardo, is a series of 80 etchings which are in direct conversation and homage to Francisco Goya's Los Caprichos, 1799. Both reveal the dark underbelly of cultural movements which ultimately serve to divide society across economic, racial, political, religious, and gender lines.
Goya's series explores the artist’s dissatisfaction and disgust with humanity’s follies during the Enlightenment, a period in which much of the Western world embraced reason and scientific discovery, yet the artist’s native Spain experienced devastating wars, economic humiliation, and religious fanaticism. Though inspired by his own society, Goya’s prints expose humanity’s universal failings. They reveal the dangerous tendency of all cultural movements to give way to fascism and inequity.
Lombardo continues this investigation within the modern, globalized world, bringing these same issues into contemporary light through a queer feminist lens. Using Goya’s work as a point of departure, Lombardo showcases recognizable figures and events to critique everything from international politics and the art market to gender roles and societal expectations. The use of recognizable politicians, celebrities, events, and institutions make The Caprichos instantly accessible to present-day viewers.
This viewing room presents 10 etchings from Lombardo’s The Caprichos series. For all images from the set, please contact Childs Gallery.
Image Credit:
Childs Gallery, Boston
The Caprichos engages the audience to ponder the congruence of past and present, resulting in an intimate recognition of the historical patterns of human behavior.
Emily Lombardo
All 80 etchings from Emily Lombardo's The Caprichos series as displayed at the 2016 IFPDA Print Fair.
A print from Emily Lombardo's new series pulled from the etching press.
Emily Lombardo's work weaves cultural and historical references to bring focus to marginalized narratives. Her practice often uses classical methods of printmaking to create timeless works of social critique.
Lombardo’s solo museum show, The Caprichos: Lombardo and Goya, at the Academy Art Museum in Maryland, featured 80 etchings by both artists. Her work has shown both nationally and internationally, most recently at Smack Mellon, La Mama Galleria and HERE Art Space in NYC, and Childs Gallery in Boston.
Lombardo is a 2020 AIM Resident at the Bronx Museum in NY. She was the recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in 2016 and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Traveling Fellowship in 2017.
Her work is in the permanent collections of The Academy Art Museum in Maryland, The Mead Museum at Amherst College, Boston Public Library, Wheaton College, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
She earned her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston and her MFA from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts in Boston, MA. Emily Lombardo lives and works in New York.