“Rising Up: Hale Woodruff’s Murals at Talladega College” Exhibition
80 Washington Square East
This event has ended.
These exceptional paintings have just been restored and are on a one-time national tour before returning to their permanent home in Alabama. This is the only time these masterpieces will be available for viewing in the New York metropolitan area.
In 1938, Talladega College President Buell Gallagher commissioned Hale Woodruff to paint a series of six murals portraying noteworthy events that commemorated the transition from slavery to freedom to be displayed in the new Savery Library, then under construction. The first three murals were installed in 1939 and were focused on the 1839 slave uprising that took place on the ship Amistad. Painted on the centennial anniversary of this historic event and depicting scenes of the mutiny, the trial, and the return of the captives to Africa, this remarkable mural series was the first created of the Amistad story in the twentieth century. Talladega’s murals immediately attracted national attention, with cultural leaders in the African American community, in particular, championing the Amistad murals as a statement of pride and hope for racial equality. Today the murals remain relevant symbols of the centuries-long struggle for civil rights.
Media
Schedule
from July 20, 2013 to October 13, 2013