Art of Remembering

Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw is Class of 1940 Bicentennial Term Associate Professor of History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania, author of Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker, also published by Duke University Press, and Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the Nineteenth Century.

“The essays in The Art of Remembering show Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw to be a sophisticated thinker with a capacious interest in American art and culture and how it represents Black people. Her voice is both hard-hitting and subtle, unafraid of tackling meaningful and challenging topics.” - Cherise Smith, Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies and Art History, University of Texas at Austin “Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw is fearless. At a moment in art history and criticism when consensus muddles clarity of perception, Shaw not only takes on subjects that otherwise would be neglected or overlooked in the pursuit of knowledge but also avoids expected and required analyses. Her laser-sharp perspective is particularly important in this age that professes a commitment to expanding the scope and depth of our knowledge of persons and events-all in the name of newfound fairness-but delivers accommodation and conciliation.” - Lowery Stokes Sims, author of (Challenge of the Modern: African-American Artists, 1925–1945) "The Art of Remembering takes the reader from the 18th century to the contemporary moment. Along the way, DuBois Shaw shares incisive criticism of the aesthetics and politics surrounding pivotal moments in Black art and representation throughout history. . . . For those interested in African-American art history and anyone following how this dialogue has unfolded over the years, it is worth grabbing a copy of DuBois Shaw’s latest collection and diving deeper into both the historic and contemporary stakes of Black art and representation."- Alexandra M. Thomas (Hyperallergic)

• List of Illustrations  ixAcknowledgments  xiiiIntroduction  1Part I. Past As Prelude  151. Facing Phillis Wheatley: Portraiture and Publishing in the Era of the American Revolution  192. Profiling Moses Williams: Silhouettes and Race in the Early Republic  423. The Freedom to Marry for All: Painting Interracial Families During the Era of the Civil War  624. Landscapes of Labor: Race, Religion, and Rhode Island in the Painting of Edward Mitchell Bannister  73Part II. Modern Blackness  855. “This Gifted Sculptress of the Race”: The Intersectional Art of May Howard Jackson  916. Singing Saints: Sargent Johnson’s Modern Blackness  1117. Norman Lewis’s Dan Mask: The Challenge of the African “Thing” in the 1930s  1278. “Bolshevized by Conditions”: African American Artists and Mexican Muralism  1359. Malcolm X Rising: Barbara Chase-Riboud’s Phenomenological Art  14410. Richard Yarde’s Mojo Blues  161Part III. Beginning Again  18711. Remembering the Remnants: Contemporary Art and Hurricane Katrina  19112. The Wandering Gaze of Carrie Mae Weems’s The Louisiana Project  20313. Ten Years of 30 Americans  21314. “No Man Is an Island”: The Diasporic Performances of Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz and Sheldon Scott  22915. What Deana Lawson Wants  237Notes  247Bibliography  277Index  289