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Vincent Dacosta Smith

First Day of School, 1965

Description

Maker

Title

First Day of School

Year

1965

Medium

Etching on paper

Materials/Techniques

Materials

Supports

Dimensions

Plate: 22.7 x 25.1 cm (8 15/16 x 9 7/8 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Original--Recto:in pencil under platemark on left:AP; titled in center:First Day of School; signed and dated on right:Vincent 65 Verso:in pencil in LL:TR 17128/34

Type

Credit

Walter H. Kimball Fund

Object Number

1991.034

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Urban America, 1930-1970

December 1, 2006 - February 25, 2007

Smith wasa member of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. The group espoused the importance of politically concerned art focused on the experience of African Americans. This print, from a series that examined the South during the mid-1960s, portrays African­American children on their way to school as they are taunted by a threatening crowd of whites across the street. It describes the continued resistance to desegregation even a decade after the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling by the Supreme Court.

One Voice, Many Visions

February 20 - June 14, 1998

I'm very much a student of history... I see the same things; what impels me to paint is still there, the issues are still the same.

The work of Vincent Smith is rooted in American history and African American life and culture. Smith, a painter, has made prints since the late 1960s. In First Day of School the viewer witnesses an historical event from the era of the Civil Rights Movement. Smith depicts children both as victims and survivors of the integration of public schools. They are overshadowed by symbols of social injustice: white men drinking corn whiskey, some armed with clubs and guns, one wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood, another carrying a sign that reads "Never." The etching resembles documentary photographs from the Chicago Defender, a black newspaper with national coverage.

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is First Day of School with the accession number of 1991.034. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.