Uncle Tom's Cabin: Dancing in the Field

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Uncle Tom's Cabin: Dancing in the Field

Artist David Levinthal (American, born 1949)

Publisher Landfall Press, Inc.

Place of OriginChicago

Date1999 (dated 2000 on work)

Dimensions(Sheet) H: 16 7/8 in. (428 mm); W: 20 in. (508 mm);
(Image) H: 10 7/8 in. (276 mm); W: 13 3/4 in. (349 mm)

MediumPhotogravure.

ClassificationPhotographs

Credit LineCarl B. Spitzer Fund

Object number

2004.71A

Not on View

Label Text“Ever since I began working with toys, I have been intrigued with the idea that these seemingly benign objects could take on such incredible power and personality simply by the way they were photographed.”---David Levinthal The studied perfection of David Levinthal’s photographic technique contrasts with feelings of a dark and troubled past as the once innocent toys he photographs become harbingers of a world gone bad. This set of eight photogravures, like much of Levinthal’s work, is simultaneously lush and chilling and raises questions about cultural stereotypes and our changing perceptions of history. Luminous tin figures placed in dramatic shadow-rich relationships act out episodes from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous (and famously sentimental) 1852 anti-slavery novel—including a slave auction, a dangerous escape across the Ohio River, and the friendship between a black child and a white child. The figures occupy an otherworldly atmosphere where the receding darkness suggests a haunted historical past. A slave auction, a dangerous escape across the Ohio River, the friendship between a black child and a white child—scenes from Harriett Beecher Stowe’s 1852 anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin are recreated here with tin toys. The dark backgrounds, lighting, and soft focus recall an old-fashioned, shadow box diorama. Levinthal enhanced the nostalgic effect with the soft, grainy look of photogravure—a 19th-century process once used for magazine illustration in which a copper etching is created from a photographic negative. Though important and influential in its time, Stowe’s novel today is often regarded as naïve and even offensive. By 1920, “Uncle Tom” had become a insult in the African-American community for a black man submissive to white authority. Levinthal’s seemingly innocent images of a 19th-century toy set may be intended to place the story back into its original, sentimental context. Like much of Levinthal’s work, Uncle Tom’s Cabin raises questions about cultural stereotypes and our changing perceptions of history. © protected by copyrightExhibition History

Toledo Museum of Art, Refraction/Reflection, April 20-September 2, 2012.

Toledo Museum of Art, People Get Ready: 50 Years of Civil Rights, June 27-September 21, 2014.