Skip to main content
Artist/Maker
Karen Hampton
(American, born 1958)
Date2001
MediumNatural dyes and hand-stitching on found cotton tea towel
DimensionsOverall: 32 3/4 × 24 1/4 in. (83.2 × 61.6 cm)
Frame: 41 1/2 × 32 × 2 3/8 in. (105.4 × 81.3 × 6 cm)
Credit LineGift of William and Carol Pollak
Object number2016.13
Not on view
DescriptionHarlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen's "Incident" (1925) describes the deep and lasting wounds racial slurs can leave on a person. In this poignant image, Hampton stitched the text of the poem across a hand-painted silhouette of her father as an infant. The text and images are imposed on a found tea towel that had been embroidered with "pickaninnies," long in use in this country as the pejorative caricature of African American children.
Collections
Additional Details
Provenance
2016: Hamilton College (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art), by gift of William Pollak.
Karen Hampton
Date: 2015
Medium: Dye-sublimation print on polyester twill over archival inkjet print on silk organza, with hand-stitching
Object number: 2015.4
Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers)
Date: 2013
Medium: Acrylic, ink, coffee, and tea on paper
Object number: 2013.2
J. S. G. Boggs
Date: 1979
Medium: Reverse painting on found window sash
Object number: 2017.13.2
Renée Stout
Date: 2008-10
Medium: Acrylic, latex paint, spray paint, plastic rhinestones, wood, glass, metal, varnish, collage, and found objects
Object number: 2016.2
Keliy Anderson-Staley
Date: 2010
Medium: Pigmented inkjet print (from a wet-plate collodion tintype)
Object number: 2020.8.16
Marla Sweeney
Date: 2003
Medium: Archival inkjet print
Object number: 2020.8.22
Thomas Nast
Date: c. 1866
Medium: Graphite on paper
Object number: 1944.1.9
Thomas Nast
Date: published March 14, 1874
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.234