Concerned with the living conditions Blacks were subjected to in the segregated South during and after the Great Depression, Woodruff produced a series of woodcuts on the subject while working for the WPA in Atlanta. Going Home depicts a row of dilapidated houses leaning precariously on thin, rickety beams. Wooden slats are missing from their walls and roofs, and the swirling storm clouds further emphasize the desperation of the situation. A lone woman, strong of body and well dressed (note her dress, hat, and high-heeled shoes), returns home after work or church. The steps she climbs seem to sag under her weight, but her solid presence seems to indicate her resilience in the face of adversity.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Going Home
Artist:Hale Woodruff (American, Cairo, Illinois 1900–1980 New York)
Date:1935
Medium:Linocut
Edition:2/10
Dimensions:15 1/8 × 11 1/4 in. (38.4 × 28.6 cm)
Classification:Prints
Credit Line:Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 1999
Object Number:1999.529.200
Inscription: Signed, dated, and inscribed (bottom edge of image, in graphite): "Going Home" 2/10 Hale Woodruff 35
[Peg Alston Fine Arts, New York, until 1991; sold on July 1, 1991 to Williams]; Reba and Dave Williams, New York (1991–99; their gift to MMA)
Hamilton, N. Y. Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University. "Life Impressions: 20th-Century African American Prints from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 10–November 4, 2001, no. 36.
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, no. 13.
Alain Locke. Contemporary Negro Art. Exh. cat., Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore, 1939, unpaginated, no. 111 (unknown edition, lent by the artist), as "Returning Home".
Alain Locke. The Negro in Art: A Pictorial Record of the Negro Artist and of the Negro Theme in Art. Washington, D.C., 1940, ill. p. 58 (unknown edition), calls it "Returning Home" and dates it 1939.
Cedric Dover. American Negro Art. Greenwich, Conn., 1960, ill. p. 121 (unknown edition, courtesy Harold Benjamin, London), calls it "Returning Home" and dates it 1939.
Richard J. Powell. Impressions / Expressions: Black American Graphics. Exh. cat., Studio Museum in Harlem. New York, 1979, p. 31, ill. p. 42 (unknown edition), calls it "Returning Home" and dates it 1939.
Mary Schmidt Campbell inHale Woodruff: 50 Years of His Art. Exh. cat., Studio Museum in Harlem. New York, 1979, pp. 32–33, 96 (unknown edition, collection of the artist), calls it "Returning Home".
Ronald Schnell. Graphic Art by Afro-American Artists from the Collections of Tougaloo College. Exh. cat., Tougaloo College. [Jackson, Miss.], 1985, unpaginated, no. 64-001, ill. (not this edition), dates it 1939.
Reba and Dave Williams 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, pp. 30, 32, no. 103, fig. 21 (MMA 1999.529.201), call it "View of Atlanta".
Leo Twiggs. "Woodruff, Hale (Aspacio)." St. James Guide to Black Artists. Ed. Thomas Riggs. Detroit, 1997, ill. p. 586 (unknown edition), calls it "Returning Home".
Richard J. Powell and Jock Reynolds. To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Exh. cat., Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Andover, Mass., 1999, p. 239, no. 264, ill. p. 238 (Collection Howard University Gallery of Art), call it "Returning Home" and date it about 1935–39.
Alison Cameron. "Buenos Vecinos: African-American Printmaking and the Taller de Gráfica Popular." Print Quarterly 16 (December 1999), p. 356, notes that this work was made after the artist's return to the United States from Mexico.
Mary Ann Calo inLife Impressions: 20th-Century African American Prints from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Dewey F. Mosby. Exh. cat., Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University. Hamilton, N. Y., 2001, p. 12.
Dewey F. Mosby and Jane Seney inLife Impressions: 20th-Century African American Prints from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Dewey F. Mosby. Exh. cat., Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University. Hamilton, N. Y., 2001, pp. 57–58, 70, no. 36, fig. 36.
Lisa Gail Collins inAfrican-American Artists, 1929–1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2003, pp. 32, 38, no. 13, ill.
Lisa Mintz Messinger inAfrican-American Artists, 1929–1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2003, p. 35.
Rachel Mustalish inAfrican-American Artists, 1929–1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2003, p. 84.
Dave H. Williams. Small Victories: One Couple's Surprising Adventures Building an Unrivaled Collection of American Prints. Boston, 2015, p. 114, fig. 12 (color).
Lisa Goff. Shantytown, USA: Forgotten Landscapes of the Working Poor. Cambridge, Mass., 2016, pp. 216–17, ill. (color), calls it "Shantytown" and dates it 1934.
Hale Woodruff (American, Cairo, Illinois 1900–1980 New York)
1935
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