Kara Walker: Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)

For over two decades, African American artist Kara Walker (b. 1969) has been making work that weaves together imagery from the antebellum South, the brutality of slavery, and racist stereotypes. Her work has stirred controversy for its use of exaggerated caricatures that reflect long-standing racialized and gendered stereotypes and for its lurid depictions of history.

Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) is a series of 15 prints based on the two-volume anthology published in 1866. Walker’s work comments on the omission of African Americans from this narrative and urges viewers to consider the persistence of violent caricature and stereotype today. To create her prints, Walker enlarged select illustrations and then overlaid them with large stenciled figures. The silhouettes visually disrupt the scenes and suffuse them with scenarios evocative of the painful past left out of Harper’s original images. Traveling from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Center for Women’s History contextualizes the exhibition with objects, images, and documents from New-York Historical’s collections.

Tue - Thu 11am - 5pm
Fri 11am - 8pm
Sat & Sun 11am - 5pm
Mon CLOSED

New York Historial Society Museum & Library
170 Central Park West (at Richard Gilder Way/77th Street)

New York, NY