Curiosities: The Art of Childhood

painting of twins asleep on a NYC subway, nestled against their caregiver
Twins (Subway), 2018, by Jordan CasteelCourtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York. © Jordan Casteel

Jordan Casteel’s 2018 painting Twins (Subway) is a sidelong look at sisters bundled in winter hats and coats, blissfully asleep under the protective arm of a caregiver. It’s a domestic scene laid bare in public: a reflection of children’s trusting innocence amid a subterranean journey as potentially perilous as any fairy tale’s dark woods.

This glimpse into the formative years through which all adults, for better or worse, make their way, is one of many explored in the new, ambitious exhibit To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood, at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (through February 26). Works by 40 artists—including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paul Klee, Glenn Ligon, and Faith Ringgold—run the gamut. They “may depict children or involve them as collaborators, represent or mimic their ways of drawing or telling stories, highlight their unique cultures, or negotiate ideas of innocence and spontaneity associated with young people,” says ICA Mannion Family senior curator Ruth Erickson.

Untitled, 2012, by Cathy Wilkes

© The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY. © Cathy Wilkes

Inspiration often stems from children’s unadulterated experiences and reactions to the world. Untitled (2012), by Glasgow-based artist Cathy Wilkes, is a mixed-media sculpture of an intergenerational trio of outdoor bathers, with an adult gently tending to a child. The rural scene amid basins and laundry buckets evokes a previous era, offering beauty and intimacy in the simple daily act of caring and washing up. More sweeping is Brian Belott’s installation Dr. Kid President Jr. (2022), which takes a joyous look at the freedom and aesthetics of children’s art (selected from the renowned collection of psychologist Rhoda Kellogg) in relation to their own renderings. Conversely, Carmen Winant’s What it is like to be (2022) reflects on the reverberating, if unintended, impact of instructional books on the young.

Read more articles by: Nell Porter Brown

You might also like

“It’s Tournament Time”

Harvard women’s basketball prepares for Ivy Madness.

A Harvard Agenda Shaped by Speech

The work underway in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Dialogue, not Debate

American University’s Lara Schwartz, J.D. ’98, teaches productive disagreement.

Most popular

alt text here

AWOL from Academics

Behind students' increasing pull toward extracurriculars

Lola Mullaney, Coach Carrie Moore, and Elena Rodriguez

“It’s Tournament Time”

Harvard women’s basketball prepares for Ivy Madness.

View of Harvard University campus from the Charles River

Why Americans Love to Hate Harvard

The president emeritus on elite universities’ academic accomplishments—and a rising tide of antagonism

More to explore

Winthrop Bell

Brief life of a philosopher and spy: 1884-1965

Talking about Talking

Fostering healthy disagreement

A Dogged Observer

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason takes the long view.