Samella Sanders Lewis (born 1924) is an incredible figure. She started at Dillard and then moved to Hampton Institute, earning her bachelor’s degree. She continued her education at OSU, earning a masters and then her PhD in art history and cultural anthropology in 1951 (first African American woman to do so). She became the first Chair of the Fine Arts Department at Florida A&M University. Lewis has taught at a number of colleges and universities, and is currently on the faculty of Scripps College, which is part of the Claremont consortium in California. She founded and served as first curator of the Museum of African American Art in LA. She is a renowned artist, best known for her prints (lithographs, screen prints, woodcuts and linocuts), but also a painter.
Today’s print has tested my art history detective skills and found them sorely lacking. I find online images dated 1968, 1969, and 2006, and it is described variously as a woodcut or a linocut. My attempted reconstruction/hypothesis is that the original block was cut in the late 60s (’68 or ’69) and was a linocut, and that she redid it as a woodcut in 2006. Why? Perhaps the original block was lost, and there was demand for more impressions? My limited Internet skills were unable to go further than this. I am so curious to learn more.
When I closely examine different images found online with different dates in the captions (as well as handwritten on the print itself by the artist), I find small variations. (It feels like those children’s games–“circle 10 differences between these two pictures.”) These could be related to wear on a single original block, reprinted after a lapse of many years; or to variations in inking; or as I hypothesize above, to creation of a new block attempting to reproduce the old.
The print itself? The recorded title is either Prophet or Modern Day Prophet. I have not been able to find specific history or commentary on this piece. I look at that face and see sadness, experience, perhaps wisdom. It again amazes me how evocative a combination of black lines and white background can be. What do you see?
