‘Take Your Purse With You’ at the ESSE Purse Museum

The ESSE Purse Museum is currently featuring the temporary exhibition, “Take Your Purse with You,” by Little Rock artist Katherine Strause. Paintings of women and their handbags inspired by mid-century photographs are on display.

Strause’s reimagined works explore the themes of transcendence, transformation and hope. The portraits are paired with ESSE’s permanent collection of purses, “What’s Inside: A Century of Women and Handbags,” which “tells the 20th-century story of the American woman through the purse and its contents,” according to ESSE’s website.

The summer exhibition will remain on display until Aug. 27. Tickets are $10 for general admission.

– Maeghen Carter, Ghidotti Communications