Museum’s Pinkney exhibit is all about the drama

Posted 3/6/19

“The Old African” by Jerry Pinkney[/caption] by William Valerio Jerry Pinkney is a living legend in the international world of illustration, the recipient of just about every award and honor …

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Museum’s Pinkney exhibit is all about the drama

Posted

“The Old African” by Jerry Pinkney[/caption]

by William Valerio

Jerry Pinkney is a living legend in the international world of illustration, the recipient of just about every award and honor bestowed onto illustration artists. He was born and raised in Germantown, on East Earlham Street, just a stone’s throw from the cemetery of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.

More than 100 of his works are included in the exhibition, “Freedom’s Journal,” on view at the Woodmere Art Museum through May 12. This is a show not to miss, if only to marvel at Pinkney’s unparalleled virtuosity and the sensuous drama he achieves with pigment, water and paper.

The show is all about drama. Pinkney recognized early on that his special gift is storytelling and exploring history. In a recent conversation recorded for Woodmere’s podcast, “Diving Board,” he remarked that although he took it for granted in his childhood, the great historic architecture and cultural textures of Germantown Avenue – the primary urban artery of his family’s life – fueled his passion for history.

“Freedom’s Journal” is an exhibition about Pinkney’s view of American history. Woodmere selected illustrations that address some of the tough subjects of the African American experience, often referred to as the “hard history” of enslavement and the Middle Passage, as well as the Underground Railroad and the struggle to wrest freedom. Pinkney’s images are well-researched, with an unending attention to detail and accuracy, all of which help him do what he sees as his responsibility as a history painter and visual storyteller: to explore the emotions of the past in order to understand the present.

The exhibition offers an extended conversation about race in America today, and Pinkney’s view is that of an optimist. He describes an “arc of promise” in the African American journey that starts in the difficult depths of enslavement and points forward, through many brave journeys and contributions on the part of individuals who are portrayed in his watercolors, toward a place of freedom.

Make sure you don’t miss a spectacular watercolor by Pinkney that Woodmere was able to acquire this year: his portrait of Sergeant William Carney of the Massachusetts 54th regiment, the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. military.

The culmination of the exhibition is a series of illustrations for “I Want to Be” that illustrate a poem by Thylias Moss. Here we follow the frolicking of a little girl of our own time who cavorts with her friends, enjoys the playground, picks flowers, flies a kite and watches the butterflies in a garden. All the while, she imagines the journey of her future. This book and these images, for Pinkney, are a self-portrait: images that represent his own childhood and the beautiful creativity that was his parents’ gift to him, growing up in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Please join us at Woodmere on Saturday, March 9 to meet Pinkney and celebrate the exhibition at our open house reception from noon to 4 p.m. For more details and information about the open house and many other events through the run of the show, visit our website: woodmereartmuseum.org. Watch our videos and listen to Jerry speaking about the exhibition on our podcast, “Diving Board.” I look forward to seeing you!

William Valerio is The Patricia Van Burgh Allison Director and CEO of Woodmere Art Museum, 9201 Germantown Ave.

arts