Over the years, I’ve amassed a sweet collection of African American art purchased at auction. It’s not a major collection worth gobs of money, but it’s a pretty good array of both local and national…
Month: October 2018
The ugly images of anti-Semitism & racism
Posted in Black history, Carvings, collectibles, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, history, and slavery
We’d like to think that we will someday somehow get past the hatred of those with the insane image in their heads that if you’re not like them – whatever that means – that you…
Anti-slavery pleas displayed in different forms
Posted in Black history, collectibles, history, and slavery
I’d often observed the “Am I Not a Man and a Brother” and the “Am I Not a Woman and a Sister” anti-slavery pleas on coins and medallions. The ones at this auction were in two new forms: a…
When I first saw the drawing, I immediately thought it was another version of a print by Philadelphia artist Julius Bloch. But it couldn’t be. Bloch was a white artist and I was attending an…
Enslaved woman in John Rogers’ “The Fugitive’s Story”
Posted in Art, Black history, slavery, and Statues
The three men in the sculpture were stalwarts of the abolitionist movement of the 19th century. Sculptor John Rogers had captured them for eternity in a grouping titled “The Fugitive’s Story.” Poet John Greenleaf Whittier,…
Woman in red hat sparks a memory, but what?
Posted in Advertising, Art, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
When I saw the painting of the woman in the red hat, she instantly reminded me of another painting. Her black hair was nicely coiffed, her red hat was fashionable, and she looked so life-like.…
A few years ago, a woman brought a lovely glass panel lamp to a presentation a friend and I were conducting to teach folks not to throw away their family’s treasures. The woman wanted to…
The blanket chest was aged and lovely, but the image painted on it was even more impressive. It was more than just a chest for storing blankets; it was folk art, created by someone with talented…
George Washington Carver on a whisky decanter
Posted in Advertising, Black history, collectibles, Figurines, and history
The figure looked like many of the other ceramic sculptures of African Americans that I’d seen in discount stores. This was an image of George Washington Carver, the man who experimented with peanuts at Tuskegee back in…