A Black History Month Exploration in Art

How can we celebrate and appreciate Black History Month at an art museum? 

Art museums serve as a place where individuals can learn, experience, and gain perspective through art. Therefore, it is only fitting that we acknowledge the achievements and history of Black Americans through the art they have created. This February, during Black History Month, I set out to ask the museum’s Collections Manager & Registrar, Loren Plunkett Hicks, for help discovering some incredible pieces from the Polk Museum’s permanent collection. She had several pieces to choose from and ponder, all beautiful and robust examples of art by Black artists that explore identity, history, stories, as well as a range of other narratives and personal experiences. 

Every year, since 1976, the current US President has endorsed a specific theme for Black History Month. This year’s theme is “Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity” (History.com Editors, 2021). With references to the African diaspora and the spread of Black families across the United States, this theme is evident in Radcliffe Bailey’s piece Between Two Worlds, which the Polk Museum of Art has in its permanent collection.

Radcliffe Bailey, Between Two Worlds, 2003, Aquatint, etching, drypoint, photograph, chine collé and velvet, edition 17/30.

At the original showcase of Bailey’s work in the Polk Museum of Art, it was said that he is “recognized as one of the most important artists currently working in the Southeastern United States today.” In this piece by Bailey, we see a photograph of a black woman in a striped dress. The woman is posing for the picture in what looks to be a photo studio; her arm is resting on a podium or bridge-like structure, and behind her appears to be a plant-based backdrop. The image of the woman is in black and white, and around the photograph is a paper cut out similar to the ones seen in old family photo albums or scrapbooks. The materials behind the photograph in the piece are a compelling visual contrast to the black and white of the photograph - we see cut pieces of images, paint, and swatches of color. There is a large blue painted shape at the bottom of the piece, appearing like a sailboat, complete with a flag emerging from the front of the bow. There are multiple flag-like depictions on the piece, even the photograph of the woman lays above an image of dark blue churning water that seems to emerge like another flag protruding from the ship. We see light blue washes of what appear to be trees in the background, and even though they are blue, the paint wash squares of green amongst the trees remind us of a forest. Careful line drawings laid out around the piece appear like old drawings on found paper or a book.

We learn several things about Bailey and his work by looking at this piece. With his use of an old family photograph and the title of his piece cleverly being called, Between Two Worlds, we can infer Bailey is identifying with his family heritage, while also acknowledging his individuality. The title of the piece itself gives us information on the work’s meaning by telling us what we should think about when viewing the woman and the background behind her. To be between two worlds is to be caught in the middle, in two places at once, to feel a relation to two different “worlds” or cultures at the same time. Is the woman in the picture between two worlds, or is Bailey? Maybe both, but the title helps direct our understanding of the work by giving us a concept to think about: being between two worlds.

Bailey understood that he was shaped by his family, their history, how that played an important part in who he became, but also understood the challenges all people face, particularly those of color when trying to understand their own individuality. Given the paintings of the boat, the trees, and the drawings in the background, we might ascertain he is exploring the past of slavery in America and the passage of Africans to America on ships. Being a black man from the South and an artist in the South, Bailey might also be hinting at the roles and jobs of Black women and men in the marshes of the South in the 1800s and 1900s. We can gain knowledge of this past and how Bailey seeks to acknowledge it by examining how he paints it in relation to the photograph of his family member in his piece.

I personally chose to take a closer look at Bailey’s piece for Black History Month because of its relation to this year’s theme of Black Family. The idea of family, be it by blood or chosen family, is something special to every individual. This year’s theme compels us to learn about the African diaspora, the “many communities of people of African descent dispersed throughout the world as a result of historic movements,” primarily, those in the Americas as a result of the Arab and Atlantic slave trades (Adamek, 2018). I find it possible that Bailey’s depiction of his relative, seemingly living a life post-slavery, amongst depictions of boats and waters and trees, symbolizes the worlds in the time of the Atlantic slave trade, and the one following it. I would love to learn more about Bailey’s work here to know more about the emotional context of the work as well. The photograph of his family member is poised, collected, I might assume she was well-off enough in life to have her own picture taken alone and posed, but the backdrop behind her frame that Bailey has depicted suggests a long history that would suggest movements of her or her family members being forced into new places they did not have control over. I feel that there is a lot more to be gathered by how Bailey arranged this piece. I would love to know why the woman is in her picture and inside the black frame, and why Bailey has chosen to paint the background in this way, colorful and full of imagery relating to the landscape of the rural south. 

Bailey’s piece is a perfect example of this year’s Black History Month theme, “Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity.”  This February, we invite you to write to us and tell us about an artist who has done a piece relating to Black History Month. What does it make you think of? Does it relate to this year’s theme of Black Family?