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WADSWORTH JARRELL (1929 - )
The Messengers
Acrylic on cotton canvas, 1979. 1727x1219 mm; 68x48 inches. Signed and dated in acrylic, lower right.
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; private collection, Georgia.
This significant painting by Wadsworth Jarrell is his largest and first work on canvas from his
important 1970s period to come to auction. In 1978,Wadsworth Jarrell left his position teaching at
Howard University inWashington, DC and joined the faculty at the University of Georgia in Athens.
This painting is part of a series he begun in 1977 based on images from a trip to Nigeria. In both
The Messengers
and
Soweto
, 1977, Jarrell incorporates elongated, large African figures with a mix of
contemporary objects and Dogon symbols. Here the message is more overtly political -
The
Messengers
carry on their heads baskets of not only fish and bottles of beer, but also hand grenades,
and some bottles have fuses.
Wadsworth Jarrell was a leading figure of the Black Arts movement and one of the founding members
of the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (AfriCOBRA) the artist collective that he and
fellow artists Barbara Jones-Hogu, Jeff Donaldson, Jae Jarrell, Napoleon Henderson, Nelson Stevens
and Gerald Williams formed in Chicago in 1969. He is best known for his 1971 iconic painting
Revolutionary
that was exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem in the
AfriCOBRA II
exhibition
from 1971-72 and is now in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum. Douglas pp. 49 - 53.
[30,000/40,000]