Worried that “the youth’s talent would be crushed by poverty and prejudice,” Hawthorne helped sponsor Johnson’s attendance at the Cape Cod School of Art and later helped to raise money for a trip abroad. At the academy, Johnson received numerous honors and earned the crucial support of one particular instructor, Charles Hawthorne. He left home at the age of seventeen, moved to Harlem, and, for the next three years, worked a series of menial jobs to underwrite his enrollment at the National Academy of Design in 1921. His early interest in art was sparked by copying comic strips that ran in the local newspaper. The exhibition is aligned with the Feminist Art Coalition.Regarded as one of the most progressive painters of his day, William Henry Johnson was born in Florence, South Carolina, the son of an African American mother and absent white father. Tawney Foundation, the Nathaniel Saltonstall Arts Fund, and the Roy A.

Weisman.Īdditional support for deCordova’s presentation comes from the Coby Foundation, Ltd., the Lenore G. The exhibition is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Amherst College, Agnes Gund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Goya Contemporary Gallery & Goya-Girl Press, Rotasa Fund, the John Meyerhoff & Lenel Srochi-Meyerhoff Fund at the Baltimore Community Foundation, and Judith S.

DeCordova’s presentation is coordinated by Sam Adams, Curatorial Fellow. Sonya Clark: Monumental Cloth, The Flag We Should Know is organized by the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Click here to read about the companion exhibition, Sonya Clark: Heavenly Bound. A multidisciplinary textile artist and Professor at Amherst College, Clark’s work offers a profound encounter with race and the enduring effects of slavery in the United States.

The exhibition asks: what was surrendered and who had the privilege of surrendering? Did the truce hold? Clark’s works explore the color, texture, and ideology of the Truce Flag, offering avenues for reevaluating foundational American narratives of truce and surrender.ĭeCordova is pleased to present two concurrent exhibitions and a full slate of public programs relating to the art of Sonya Clark. Yet, as Clark shows, propaganda continues to make the more familiar Confederate Battle Flag into the enduring symbol of this history. The Confederate Flag of Truce is a simple dishcloth employed as the South’s flag of surrender at the end of the Civil War in 1865. Through large-scale textile pieces, interactive experiences, and performance, this exhibition proposes a shift in the national discussion around race and remembrance.

Red House by Sonya Clark