Contemplation of the Mask (No. 4-- In Honor of Martin Luther King)

William Christopher, American, 1924 - 1973

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1963

Tempera or casein on panel

Overall: 41 15/16 × 39 15/16 in. (106.6 × 101.5 cm)

Frame: 45 1/4 × 47 1/8 in. (115 × 119.7 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of the artist; painted in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; dedicated to Osceola Archer, and given to Dartmouth College in the name of her son, Charles M. Adams, Class of 1937, Thayer 1938

P.965.16

Geography

Place Made: United States, North America

Period

20th century

Object Name

Painting

Research Area

Painting

Not on view

Inscriptions

Inscribed, on reverse, in black paint, upper left to right: "NO. 4 - IN HONOR OF MARTIN LUTHER KING / CHRISTOPHER / 1963

Course History

WGST 10, Sex, Gender, and Society, Francine A'Ness, Fall 2014

Exhibition History

Main Lobby, in conjunction with the exhibition Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 7-December 6, 2014.

Recent Paintings by William Christopher, Joan Peterson Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, 1965.

William Christopher, Paintings, Collages, Drawings, Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Hopkins Center Museum and Gallery, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 5-28, 1965.

Publication History

James O. Freedman, Presidential Range: Originals and Copies, Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Summer 1991, p.12.

Hommage a la Femme Noire, Vol 5. Simone Schartz-Bart, Les Editions "Consulaires", 24 Rue Saint Gilles, 75004, Paris.

Justin Spring, American Art Magazine, An Interview with George Tooker, Spring 2002, Volume 16, number 1, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian American Art Museum, March 2002, pp. 60-81, ill. p. 73.

Brian P. Kennedy and Emily Shubert Burke, Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2009 p.212, no.286.

Linden, Diana L. ""In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King": White Privilege and White Masks in William Christopher's Paintings of 1963." American Art, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Fall 2019), ill. p. 68.

Provenance

The artist (1924-1973), Hartland, Vermont, 1963; given to present collection, 1965.

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