Object Record
Images
Metadata
Title |
Boone Hall Plantation |
Artist |
Harleston, Edwin |
Date |
ca. 1925 |
Medium |
oil |
Support |
canvas |
Dimensions |
14 x 16 7/8 inches |
Signature |
E Harleston |
Signature Location |
bottom left |
Inscription |
NA |
Credit line |
Gift of Maude Jenkins in memory of her Aunt, Harriet McClennan Mickey |
Accession Number |
1997.009 |
Collection |
Painting |
Exhibition Status |
Currently on view |
Description |
A Charleston, South Carolina native, Edwin Harleston was a graduate of the prestigious Avery Normal Institute and Atlanta University. Several years of study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, made him one of Charleston's strongest academically-trained artists when he returned after 1913. Even though he aspired to work for blacks and whites, as an African American he had little contact with the latter and on several occasions lost commissions and exhibition opportunities because he was black. Interestingly, in an attempt to appeal to white audiences, Harleston painted several scenes of area plantations much like his white contemporaries Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, Elizabeth O'Neill Verner and Alfred Hutty who were pivotal figures in the cultural renaissance Charleston experienced between the two world wars. Unlike these artists, however, Harleston could only enter many of the locations covertly due to the segregation laws and customs of the Jim Crow South. The title of this painting is misleading -- this painting is not actually of Boone Hall plantation in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Instead it appears to represent Oak Lawn, a plantation in Charleston County originally owned by William Elliott, near Parker's Ferry. |
Subjects |
boone hall Landscape paintings Houses Trees Roads Spanish moss Oaks Fences Structures |
Image |
011\1997.09.JPG |