African art offered artists attractive alternatives to Western artistic traditions of realism and suggested different and desirable cultural standards of physical beauty. The sensuous female figure in Woodruff’s print echoes the aesthetic criteria promoted by Baule artists from the Ivory Coast in West Africa. Her oval head and long, slender nose suggest a specific type of Baule mask that a man might commission from a carver to honor a female relative or in homage to a particular woman’s dance skills and beauty. Such masks were well known among European and American artistic circles during the first decades of the twentieth century.
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Artwork Details
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Title:African Headdress
Artist:Hale Woodruff (American, Cairo, Illinois 1900–1980 New York)
Date:1935
Medium:Linocut
Edition:7/10
Dimensions:Sheet: 11 1/2 × 9 in. (29.2 × 22.9 cm) Image: 6 × 4 1/8 in. (15.2 × 10.5 cm)
Classification:Prints
Credit Line:Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 1999
Accession Number:1999.529.204
Inscription: Signed and inscribed (in pencil, bottom): Young Girl 7/10 Hale Woodruff
[Evans-Tibbs Gallery, Washington, D.C., until 1992; sold on January 1, 1992 to Williams]; Reba and Dave Williams, New York (1992–99; their gift to MMA)
Newark Museum, held jointly at the Equitable Gallery, New York. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," December 10, 1992–February 28, 1993, no. 104 (as "Young Girl").
Long Beach Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," June 4–August 8, 1993, no. 104.
Cambridge, England. Fitzwilliam Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," October 5–December 19, 1993, no. 104.
Albany. New York State Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," January 5–March 13, 1994, no. 104.
New Haven. Yale University Art Gallery. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," April 7–June 12, 1994, no. 104.
Louisville. Speed Art Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," July 12–September 4, 1994, no. 104.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," October 9–December 4, 1994, no. 104.
Baltimore Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," January 4–February 26, 1995, no. 104.
Charleston. Gibbes Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," March 26–May 21, 1995, no. 104.
Miami Beach. Bass Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," June 18–August 13, 1995, no. 104.
Little Rock. Arkansas Arts Center. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," September 10–November 5, 1995, no. 104.
Mobile, Ala. Fine Arts Museum of the South. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," December 3, 1995–January 28, 1996, no. 104.
Brooklyn Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," February 25–April 22, 1996, no. 104.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," May 17–July 14, 1996, no. 104.
Dallas Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," August 9–October 6, 1996, no. 104.
Saint Louis Art Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," November 1, 1996–January 2, 1997, no. 104.
Atlanta. High Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," January 31–March 30, 1997, no. 104.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "African-American Artists, 1929–1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," January 15–May 4, 2003, extended to July 6, 2003, not in catalogue.
Alain Locke. Contemporary Negro Art. Exh. cat., Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore, 1939, unpaginated, no. 109 (unknown edition, lent by the artist), calls it "Young Girl".
Leslie King-Hammond inAlone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–40s by African-American Artists; From the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams. Exh. cat., Newark Museum. New York, 1993, p. 19, calls it "Young Girl".
Hale Woodruff (American, Cairo, Illinois 1900–1980 New York)
1935, posthumously printed in 1996
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