The Artist’s Magazine – October 2019

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, 2019

LEFT

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 YORK

BELOW

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.