Death of Lulu
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
2016.17.4
Portfolio / Series Title
Number 4 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
Not on view
Label
These illustrations amplify key moments in Richard Wright’s 1938 story of racial injustice, “Down by the Riverside.” The fictional tale tells of the death of a Black father, named Brother Mann, who attempts to save his family during a Mississippi flood. Mann uses a stolen boat to take his ill pregnant wife to a hospital for their child's delivery. En route, Mann is discovered by the owner of the boat, a White man, who tries to shooth mMann, but Mann, in self-defense, kills the boat owner. By the time Brother Mann and his wife reach the hospital, she has died. Later, Mann rescues the family of the boat owner he had killed. Once safe, the family turns Mann in to the authorities, and in their custody, Mann is killed without a trial.
Foreshadowing the inevitable tragedy, John Wilson’s black and blue palette and repeated linework lend emotional weight, rather than detail, to each scene. Racial tensions, first wrought by slavery, runs so deep in Wright's story, it has taken root in the land.
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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