Tears of Stone: World War I Remembered
November 7 – 30, 2002
While on a research trip to France, I was deeply moved by the sheer number of monuments created in honor of those who died in World War I. The unprecedented number of casualties in the Great War introduced the concept that when a country loses a huge portion of its population in wartime, it has a need to acknowledge and defend the sacrifice in a public manner.
A desire to examine the manner in which these men are still memorialized today became the catalyst for this body of work. Since war is an ongoing, albeit sporadic, event in the lives of nations, examining the collective grieving process can help foster an understanding of the impact of war on nations, as well as on individuals who are left behind.
Jane Alden Stevens is inspired by history at every level — personal, familial, cultural, and global. Her photographic narratives examine and interpret the relationship between humans and the world they create for themselves. Her artistic practice draws on her inherent thirst for reading and research, as she studies aspects of psychology, sociology, art, religion, music, economics, agriculture, politics, and geography to inform her work.
Solo exhibitions of Stevens’s work have been mounted at the Dayton Art Institute, ARC Gallery in Chicago, and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. Stevens has exhibited extensively abroad, including in Finland, Ukraine, Belgium, Germany, and Brazil. Her photographs are included in the permanent collections of the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY; the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, TX; the Cincinnati Art Museum; and the Museu da Imagem e do Som in São Paulo, Brazil; among many others. She currently lives in Cincinnati.