ART in Embassies comes to Dakar
ART in Embassies comes to Dakar
John Doyle, OLD MARKET STREET, 2006, Textured giclee on canvas, Courtesy of John Carroll Doyle Art Gallery, Charleston, South Carolina
ART in Embassies Message from Ambassador Lukens
Lucy and I invite you to experience an American art collection that celebrates artistic and cultural connections between West Africa and the United States, especially Lucy’s home state of South Carolina. Our exhibition features paintings and sweetgrass baskets from South Carolina and antique quilts from Alabama.
The sweetgrass basket art form was brought to the United States in the latter half of the 17th century by West African slaves, who adapted basketry traditions from their homelands in the Senegambia region to indigenous materials, creating work baskets needed on rice plantations. The baskets by South Carolina artists are displayed alongside our own Senegalese baskets.
The four aquatints in the collection feature quilts made by women from Gee’s Bend, Alabama, an all-black community that served as a haven for freed slaves after the Civil War. The women of Gee’s Bend developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style, which is reflected in the two antique quilts in the collection. Despite differences in time, history, geography and culture, stylistic similarities between these quilts and West African textile traditions suggest cultural continuity and related sensibilities.
More modern paintings in the exhibition feature the colorful vegetation and tranquil aquatic landscapes of the South Carolina Low Country. Visit historical Charleston with its French architectural influence, and discover fishing techniques brought from West Africa. Marvel at the diversity of South Carolina’s geography and the beauty of its people.
You can visit all 22 of the art pieces, including their descriptions and information about the artists, online at http://art.state.gov/exhibitiondetail.aspx?id=106244®ion=AF&pid=64.
Ambassador Lewis Lukens