Untitled #16 (At Lake Erie), 2017
Dawoud Bey, American, born 1953
2018
Gelatin silver print on Ilford 310 gsm Baryta paper
3/10
Image: 17 5/8 × 21 15/16 in. (44.8 × 55.8 cm)
Sheet: 19 3/4 × 23 13/16 in. (50.2 × 60.5 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Evelyn A. and William B. Jaffe 2015 Fund, the Virginia and Preston T. Kelsey 1958 Fund, and the Elizabeth and David C. Lowenstein '67 Fund
© Dawoud Bey
2025.24.4.9
Portfolio / Series Title
Night Coming Tenderly, Black
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
21st century
Object Name
Photograph
Research Area
Photograph
American History
Not on view
Inscriptions
Numbered, on reverse, lower left, in graphite; 3 / 10
Label
The rich grayscale of this photo results from the combination of silver gelatin printing and Dawoud Bey’s use of night photography. The images in this series, titled Night Coming Tenderly, Black, mark the journey of once-enslaved women, men, and children through the Underground Railroad from Ohio across Lake Erie to freedom in Canada. Some sites are marked in the historical records and others have been selected to stand in for places unknown. Bey’s photographs give a small sense of the peril and the bravery required to travel hundreds of miles in the dark of night, hiding in the woods while always trying to reach safehouses along the way. The title of the series references a line from the Langston Hughes poem “Dream Variations”: “Night coming tenderly / Black like me.”
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)
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.
Provenance
Stephen Daiter Gallery, 2023; sold to present collection, 2025.
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