Witness
Benny Andrews, American, 1920 - 2006
1968
Oil on canvas with painted fabric collage
Overall: 48 × 48 in. (121.9 × 121.9 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through gifts from Evelyn A. and William B. Jaffe, Class of 1964H; Kent M. Klineman, Class of 1954; and Mr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Hazen, by exchange
2015.7
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Painting
Research Area
Painting
Not on view
Inscriptions
Signed and dated, in black paint, lower right: BENNY ANDREWS-68; titled, signed and dated, on reverse: "WITNESS" / Benny Andrews / 1968
Label
The subject in Witness is a fighter whose gravitas stems from surviving the hardship of everyday life for a black American woman in the first half of the twentieth century. Her gaunt face and thin, ropy arms suggest someone who is elderly and worn. The rough cloth that defines her face and garments evoke the fabrics that Andrews himself recalls being dressed in as a child, including repurposed seed and fertilizer sacks. This coarseness contributes to the authenticity and pride in her bearing.
Andrews never distinguished art from activism, depicting African American life from a well of personal experience and advocating publicly for African American artists. As the title Witness suggests, the painting testifies to a life defined by defiance derived from the power of seeing and surviving. The fact that Andrews chose as his subject in Witness a single anonymous figure representing everyday African American life strengthens one of the powerful social messages of his work: that depicting blackness in America was in itself subversive.
From the 2019 exhibition Entrance Gallery, curated by John R. Stomberg Ph.D, Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director
Course History
AAAS 67.5, GEOG 21.01, Black Consciousness and Black Feminisms, Abigail Neely, Winter 2019
SART 31/SART 72, Painting II/Painting III, Colleen Randall, Spring 2020
AAAS 7.05, Imagining Black Freedom in America since the Civil War, Julie Rabig, Spring 2020
WRIT 03.05, US History, Immigration, and Native Peoples, Douglas Moody, Winter 2021
WRIT 03.05, US History, Immigration, and Native Peoples, Douglas Moody, Winter 2021
AAAS 88.19, Contemporary African-American Artists, Michael Chaney, Summer 2021
WRIT 3, Composition and Research II, Doug Moody, Winter 2022
SART 31/SART 72, Painting II/III, Colleen Randall, Spring 2022
SART 25.01, Painting I, Danielle Genadry, Summer 2022
HIST 10.04/AAAS 20.02, Dartmouth Black Lives, Julia Rabig and Darryl Barthe, Fall 2022
Writing Program 3.06, Composition and Research II, Doug Moody, Winter 2023
Studio Art 31.01/72.01, Painting II/III, Colleen Randall, Spring 2023
Exhibition History
Entrance Gallery, Luise and Morton Kaish Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 10-August 11, 2019.
Provenance
The artist (1920-2006), Brooklyn, New York; to his wife, Nene Humphrey, Brooklyn, New York; Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, New York; sold to present collection, 2015.
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