Embarkation
John Wilson, American, 1922 - 2015
2001
Etching and aquatint on wove paper
16/60
Sheet: 12 × 16 in. (30.5 × 40.6 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Contemporary Art Fund
2016.17.2
Portfolio / Series Title
Number 2 from Down by the Riverside, The Richard Wright Suite
Printer
James Stroud | Center Street Studio, Milton, Massachusetts
Publisher
The Limited Editions Club, New York
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
21st century
Object Name
Research Area
On view
Label
These are three etchings from a group of six that illustrate Richard Wright’s 1938 story “Down by the Riverside.” In the tale, Brother Mann attempts to save his family, and later himself, from the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. With floodwaters rising and Mann’s wife, Lulu, gravely ill, they are forced to flee their home in a stolen rowboat. The boat’s owner, a White man, discovers the theft and shoots at Mann, who kills the man in self-defense. They finally arrive at the hospital but find Lulu dead. Later, Mann rescues the family of the man he killed, and, after they reach safety, the family turns Mann in to the authorities, and he is shot to death.
Wilson’s black and blue prints are consumed by darkness, foreshadowing the inevitable tragedy. Systemic racism, first wrought by slavery, runs so deep in Wright’s story that it has taken root in the land. Wilson’s illustrations, along with the story, portray uncommon events embedded with all-too-familiar forms of injustice.
From the 2026 exhibition Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, curated by Amelia Kahl (Barbara C. & Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming) and Alisa Swindell (Associate Curator of Photography)
Course History
Gallery Talk: The Embodiment of Language, Winter 2020
AAAS 88.19, Contemporary African-American Artists, Michael Chaney, Summer 2021
Exhibition History
Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, Jaffe and Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 20, 2025 - July 11, 2026.
The Embodiment of Language, First Floor Corridor, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 18-May 24, 2020.
Provenance
Center Street Studio, Milton, Massachusetts; sold to present collection, 2016.
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