Midwife (Breath of Life)
Henry W. Bannarn, American, 1910 - 1965
about 1940
Mahogany or walnut
Overall: 16 3/4 × 8 3/16 × 5 in. (42.5 × 20.8 × 12.7 cm)
Base: 1 9/16 × 12 7/16 × 9 15/16 in. (4 × 31.6 × 25.2 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Katharine T. and Merrill G. Beede 1929 Fund and the Florence and Lansing Porter Moore 1937 Fund
© The Estate of Henry Bannarn
2006.31
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Sculpture
Research Area
Sculpture
Not on view
Inscriptions
Carved, proper left side, at bottom: BANNARN
Label
Henry “Mike” Bannarn upholds the midwife as an emblem of African American life, and foregrounds the power of African sculptural legacies, simultaneously challenging the dominant white establishment of both art and culture in the United States.
The subject of Midwife (Breath of Life) and the blocky forms and rough-hewn carving technique lead us to connect this work with African artistic traditions. The artist depicts a midwife slapping the first breath of life into the infant she holds upside down in her arms. In many African societies, midwives were held in awe as healers and ritual specialists who assisted with birthing and reproductive health, often prepared the dead for burial, and were thought to have supernatural powers. In America during the 1930s, midwives were still commonplace in rural areas and in poorer urban neighborhoods, including Harlem, New York. This sculpture dates to the very period in which the medical establishment was attempting to eradicate—or at least control—the practice of midwifery in this country.
From the 2019 exhibition Cubism and Its Aftershocks, curated by John R. Stomberg Ph.D, Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director
Course History
ANTH 7, The Values of Medicine, Sienna Craig, Winter 2013
REL 51, Virgin of Guadalupe, Elizabeth Perez, Winter 2013
REL 7, Dark Goddesses and Black Madonnas, Elizabeth Perez, Winter 2013
ANTH 7, The Values of Medicine, Sienna Craig, Winter 2013
ANTH 17, The Anthropology of Health and Illness, Lauren Gulbas, Fall 2013
ARTH 71, The "American Century": Modern Art in the United States, Mary Coffey, Winter 2015
ARTH 71, The "American Century": Modern Art in the United States. Mary Coffey, Winter 2015
GEOG 17, Geopolitics and Third World Development, Patricia Lopez, Spring 2015
GEOG 17, Geopolitics and Third World Development, Patricia Lopez, Spring 2015
ANTH 50.17, Rites of Passage, Sienna Craig, Spring 2020
WGSS 30.05/LACS 36, Maid in America, Francine A'Ness, Spring 2021
AAAS 88.19, Contemporary African-American Artists, Michael Chaney, Summer 2021
GEOG 72.01/AAAS 67.50/WGSS 66.09, Black Consciousness Black Feminism, Abby Neely, Spring 2022
Exhibition History
American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 9-December 9, 2007.
Augusta Savage and the Art Schools of Harlem. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library, New York, October 9, 1988-January 28, 1989.
Cubism and Its Aftershocks, Citrin Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26, 2019-November 27, 2019.
Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 2-November 1, 2009.
Publication History
Barbara J. MacAdam, Saar and Bannarn: Hood Acquires Two Sculptures by African American Artists, Hood Museum of Art Quarterly, No. 17, Autumn 2006, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, p. 14.
Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 129, no. 102.
Barbara J. MacAdam, Building on Dartmouth's Historic American Collections: Hood Museum of Art Acquisitions since 1985, The Magazine Antiques, November 2007, New York: Brant Publications, color ill. p. 149.
John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 160, ill. plate no. 91.
Provenance
The artist; to Hassie Bannarn Betz [artist's daugther], about 1965; to Conner-Rosenkranz, LLC [art dealer], New York, New York, Fall 2005; sold to present collection, June, 2006.
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