L: Hale Woodruff (American, 1900-1980), Giddap, from the portfolio Selections from the Atlanta Period, 1935; printed 1996, linocut on paper, Gift of Ivanhoe B. Higgins, Jr. and Jill M. Ward, © unknown, research required, 2013.6.1f
This work is not currently on view.
R: Hale Woodruff (American, 1900-1980), By Parties Unknown, from the portfolio Selections from the Atlanta Period, 1935; printed 1996, linocut on paper, Gift of Ivanhoe B. Higgins, Jr. and Jill M. Ward, © unknown, research required, 2013.6.1e
This work is not currently on view.
"Other sets of prints provide narrative overviews of life in the black rural South that are characteristically dark, containing figures on dramatic poses, some bordering on distortion and conveying rather bleak conditions. At the same time these works contain elements of beauty and skill, so much so that we are initially drawn intimately into the picture plane just as the realization hits home that such works as Giddap (fig. 1) and By Parties Unknown (fig.2) are stark commentaries on the isolation, horror and reality of lynching. In 1935, Giddap and By Parties Unknown were among the forty-nine works by thirty-seven artists in 'An Art Commentary on Lynching', held by Arthur U. Newton Galleries in New York. The catalog to the exhibition contained essay by Sherwood Anderson and Erkskine Caldwell that made strong appeals to the nation to take measures to terminate such acts. Students Wilmer Jennings and Martin Gray Johnson had works represented as did George Bellows, William Chase, Jose Clemente Orozco, Samuel J. Brown and Paul Cadmus."
- Amaki, Amelia K., and Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, 'Hale Woodruff, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet and the Academy'; Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2007.