92 Artists Magazine October 2019
Pennsylvania
SOULS GROWN DEEP:
ARTISTS OF THE AFRICAN
AMERICAN SOUTH
PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART
PHILADELPHIA, PA. • PHILAMUSEUM.ORG
THROUGH SEPTEMBER 2“Souls Grown Deep: Artists of the African
American South” presents paintings and
sculptures from 1985 to 2004 and quilts
made from the 1920s to the early 2000s
to depict the artistic traditions of the
African-American community in the
Southeast. Some of the featured artists are
Thornton Dial whose work includes
large-scale sculptures and reliefs; Lonnie
Holley; Ronald Lockett; and Bessie Harvey.
Themes respond to current and past
issues such as poverty, oppression, violence,
marginalization and racial conflict. In one
of Dial’s works, the artist uses metal, goat
hides, barbed wire and other gathered
materials to depict a slave ship in high
relief and in grand scale.
The 15 quilts in the show were made by artists from
or around Gee’s Bend, a community near Selma, Ala.
The earliest examples, made in the 1920s and ’30s,
are by Martha Jane Pettway, Annie E. Pettway and
Henrietta Pettway, all distantly related through mar-
riage—their shared name reflecting the history of
the Pettway plantation in Gee’s Bend, which profited
from enslaved labor.
“These works enable us to tell a fuller story about
American art,” says John Vick, Collections Project
Manager, who organized the exhibition. “They engage
with the past, be it with local traditions or events of
national significance, and they share an approach to
art-making that values recycling and reconfiguring
the stuff of everyday life. They bring us into the pres-
ent by advancing the conversation about who is called
an artist and who is represented in art museums.”Must-see museum exhibitions
DO
NOW
ABOVE
Flying Geese Variation Quilt
(pieced cotton and wool, 86x71)
by Annie E. Pettway
© ESTATE OF ANNIE E. PETTWAY;
IMAGE COURTESY OF PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM
OF ART, 2019LEFT
Housetop Quilt-Fractured-
Medallion Variation
(cotton, 79x79)
by Delia Bennett
© ESTATE OF DELIA BENNETT/ARTISTS RIGHTS
SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK; PHOTO BY STEPHEN
PITKIN/PITKIN STUDIO/ART RESOURCE (AR),
NEW YORKBELOW
The Last Day of Martin Luther King
(mixed media and found materials,
80x113½ ) by Thornton Dial, Sr.
© ESTATE OF THORNTON DIAL/ARTISTS RIGHTS
SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. PHOTO BY GAMMA
ONE CONVERSIONS. IMAGE COURTESY OF
PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART, 2019.