Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)
Artist: Kara Elizabeth Walker (American, born 1969)
Publisher: LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies
Date: 2005
Dimensions:
53 x 39 inches
Medium: 15 Offset lithographs with silkscreen in a handmade clothbound box
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 2016.75A-P
Label Text:Widely known for her radical engagement with issues of race, gender, and sexuality, Kara Walker is one of today’s most successful and celebrated American artists. This portfolio features 15 of her signature black silhouettes layered over Civil War scenes taken from the 1866 publication Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War. By superimposing her large-scale, richly dark figures on background landscapes and military scenes, Walker re-imagines events from an African American perspective.
Though Walker’s selection includes images that emphasize moments of Union victory, equally important is what she chooses to omit: portraits of (white) military leaders, major battle scenes, overt scenes of racism, and significantly, images that marked the beginning or end of the war. Unlike Harper’s, Walker’s series unfolds in no particular order, as if to suggest that chronology is unimportant when the psychic tensions inherent in the historical conflict continue to reverberate today.
The physical presence of her interventions, which loom over, obscure, or interact with the historical scenes, call attention to the title’s ironic inclusion of “annotated”—a term referring to explanatory comments typically found beside a text. By making central what had been marginalized, Walker creates an evocative and powerful visual statement that both challenges and complicates the conventional one-sided textbook account of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery.
Though Walker’s selection includes images that emphasize moments of Union victory, equally important is what she chooses to omit: portraits of (white) military leaders, major battle scenes, overt scenes of racism, and significantly, images that marked the beginning or end of the war. Unlike Harper’s, Walker’s series unfolds in no particular order, as if to suggest that chronology is unimportant when the psychic tensions inherent in the historical conflict continue to reverberate today.
The physical presence of her interventions, which loom over, obscure, or interact with the historical scenes, call attention to the title’s ironic inclusion of “annotated”—a term referring to explanatory comments typically found beside a text. By making central what had been marginalized, Walker creates an evocative and powerful visual statement that both challenges and complicates the conventional one-sided textbook account of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery.
Not on view