Mother and Son
Roland Dorcély, Haitian, 1930 - 2017
before 1957
Tempera on composition board
Overall: 48 3/8 × 32 3/16 in. (122.9 × 81.7 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Diana J. and Professor Emeritus H. Wentworth Eldredge, Class of 1931
P.984.39.3
Geography
Place Made: Haiti, Caribbean, Central America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Painting
Research Area
Painting
Americas
Not on view
Inscriptions
Signed, lower right: R. Dorc (signature appears to have been cut off); on reverse, in black crayon: #101 MOTHER AND SON
Label
Energetic brushstrokes and deep colors give the painting a sense of vitality. In Haiti, Vodou practitioners often wear white, symbolizing purity, at ceremonies. Haitian Vodou is a blend of West African vodun spirituality and Roman Catholicism, and fittingly, the mother’s act of cleansing her feet in a basin might allude to the Christian ritual of feet washing. There is a rich, evocative history of painting in Haiti, of which Roland Dorcély is a mainstay.
From the 2023 exhibition Homecoming: Domesticity and Kinship in Global African Art, curated by Alexandra Thomas, Curatorial Research Associate
Course History
ANTH 50, AAAS 88, LACS 50, Haiti at the Crossroads, Chelsey Kivland, Spring 2013
ANTH 50.4, AAAS 88.5, LACS 50.2, Race, Power, and Development in Global Haiti, Chelsey Kivland, Fall 2013
ANTH 7, Haiti and Its Visitors, Chelsey Kivland, Winter 2019
SART 31/SART 72, Painting II/III, Colleen Randall, Spring 2022
Exhibition History
Homecoming: Domesticity and Kinship in Global African Art, Harteveldt Family Gallery, Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, and Northeast Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 22, 2023–May 25, 2024.
Publication History
Dean, Stephanie. "The Mother's Voice", A Video Tape Presentation for partial requirement of MALS Degree, Dartmouth College
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.27, no.5.
Provenance
Diana Joan Younger Eldredge (1919-1999) and H. Wentworth Eldredge (1909-1991), Norwich, Vermont; given to present collection, 1984.
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