Object Details
- Artist
- William H. Johnson, born Florence, SC 1901-died Central Islip, NY 1970
- Sitter
- Booker T. Washington
- Exhibition Label
- Johnson presents a formally dressed Booker T. Washington (1856--1915) addressing a coeducational class of Black students. He is framed by a blackboard on which a saw, trowel, and hammer represent the building trades. A rake, shovels, and other farm implements attest to Tuskegee's importance as a center for agricultural research. (Washington hired George Washington Carver to run the agriculture program in 1896.) Opposite, an artist's palette, an inkwell, and musical instruments symbolize the liberal arts.
- For Washington, education was crucial to the economic and social advancement of African Americans. In his autobiography Up from Slavery, he told of his early years on a Virginia tobacco plantation and his adolescence working in a West Virginia coal mine. Only after his four-to-nine a.m. shift was over was he allowed to go to school. Determined to get a formal education, Washington walked five hundred miles to Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), where he proved to be a star student. Seven years later, he was invited to teach at Hampton. In 1881 he launched the Tuskegee Normal and Agricultural Institute in Alabama.
- Credit Line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation
- ca. 1944-1945
- Object number
- 1967.59.664
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Type
- Painting
- Medium
- oil on plywood
- Dimensions
- 32 5/8 x 25 1/4 in. (82.9 x 64.1 cm.)
- See more items in
- Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Topic
- Figure group
- African American
- Occupation\education\student
- Portrait male
- Record ID
- saam_1967.59.664
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/vk7838cf038-4988-4b4c-934f-753cf38f7a23
