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oil paint canvas
Currently on view at Mint Museum--UPTOWN
Museum purchase with funds provided by Peggy and Bob Culbertson, the Romare Bearden Society, Sally and Russell Robinson, Mary Lou and Jim Babb, and a gift of the Moreland Family
This remarkable painting was created in response to the heart-wrenching events that unfolded in Selma, Alabama, in the spring of 1965. On March 7, which has come to be known as “Bloody Sunday,” more than 500 people attempting to walk from Selma to Montgomery to raise awareness for voting rights and to protest the death of Jimmy Lee Jackson were attacked by police officers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. A second march, held two days later, was led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and saw the addition of clergy and citizens from across the country. It was turned around peacefully. The final, successful march began on March 21 and ended four days later at the state capitol, where a crowd of an estimated 25,000 people listened to Dr. King’s speech “How Long, Not Long.” Barbara Pennington, an Alabama native and talented painter who had won a full scholarship to study art at the University of Alabama, was working in New York at the time of the Selma marches and attacks. The events unfolding in her home state inspired her to create this monumental canvas, which is unlike the majority of her other, more abstract, work. Likely drawing upon images that appeared in the mass media, Pennington wove together various parts of the narrative into a striking scene that still serves as a powerful, moving representation of the tragic events more than fifty years later.
Accession Number: 2014.79
Measurements:
Copyright Information:
EPL transfered copyright with deed of gift from the artist's niece, Vickie Moreland, 12/30/2014
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