Hands of Inge

Object Details

Directed by

John W. Fletcher Jr., American

Edited by

Tee Beveridge, American, 1923 - 1993

Subject of

Inge Hardison, American, 1914 - 2016

Composed by

Mal Waldron, American, 1925 - 2002

Ron Carter, American, born 1937

Eric Dolphy, American, 1928 - 1964

Narrated by

Ossie Davis, American, 1917 - 2005

Owned by

Pearl Bowser, American, 1931 - 2023

Caption

This 16mm black and white film is a short film exploring the work and methodology of acclaimed African American sculptor Inge Hardison. The film, made relatively early in her career, details her working processes with clay, bronze, and wire.

Description

The 16mm, black-and-white film serves as a short introduction to the work and methodology of acclaimed African American sculptor Inge Hardison. The film, made relatively early in her career, details her working processes with clay, bronze, and wire. The camera largely focuses on her hands, although there are also some shots that include her full body and the model, a young girl, Hardison's daughter, Yolande. The jazz music soundtrack features Mal Waldron, Eric Dolphy, Ron Carter, and Toni Ross. Hortense Beveridge edited the film. There is some voiceover narration by Ossie Davis.

The film opens with close-ups of Hardison's hands as she displays some tools, cuts a piece of metal, and begins the process of making clay for sculpture. The next scene shows her hands working with metal wire and wood and using wire cutters as she twists the metal around another object. At this point in the film, the narration by Ossie Davis begins. He introduces Hardison and then the camera shot pulls back to show her working on a sculpture on a waist-high table. All of the materials from the previous scene appear to have been used in the sculpture she is working on. The camera shot returns to a close-up of her hands as she molds the clay around the wire. As she continues to work, the clay is molded into the shape of a human head, and Davis reveals that she is creating a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. The next scenes show some of her other sculpture, including one of Father John Coleman of Brooklyn, Nellie Carrington from the book Smokey Town Road written by Hardison, Elaine Atwell, and her niece Minnie Hardison. The montage of her works ends with a small full nude sculpture. The next scene shows a close-up of hands working on a sculpture of her daughter. Then the footage shows her daughter and compares her to the sculpture with sporadic narration by Davis. He then explains how she is preparing the sculpture to be made into bronze. The next scene shows her hands using pliers to work with wire. The final design shown is a man made of wire in a running position. The film ends with a montage of her hands with and without tools.

An original metal film canister (2012.79.1.9.1c) also accompanies the film. One half of the canister has a pre-printed Chamba Educational Film Servies mail label addressed to Hortense Beveridge, while the other half has a handwritten label from Hortense Beveridge.

Credit Line

Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Pearl Bowser

ca. 1962

Object number

2012.79.1.9.1ac

Restrictions & Rights

No known copyright restrictions

Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.

Type

sound films

black-and-white films (visual works)

short subjects

16mm (photographic film size)

Medium

acetate film and metal

Dimensions

Duration: 10 min.

Physical extent (film): 412 ft

Place filmed

Manhattan, New York City, New York County, New York, United States, North and Central America

See more items in

National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection

Collection title

Pearl Bowser Collection

Classification

Time-based Media - Moving Images

National Museum of African American History and Culture

Topic

African American

Actors

Art

Film

Jazz (Music)

Process films

Women

Record ID

nmaahc_2012.79.1.9.1ac

Metadata Usage (text)

CC0

GUID (Link to Original Record)

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/fd5c45b93d7-bdd0-4353-a4b6-600de94c0223