Blues Wake: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A black and white woodcut depicting two men sitting together. The man on the right faces the viewer and resembles blues singer Lead Belly (Huddie William Ledbetter). He sits with a guitar on his lap, his arms folded and resting on top of the guitar’s body. The man on the left is turned to face the man with the guitar, his face in profile to the viewer. Above the men is a round window. The background is entirely covered in a typographic design, with some of the letters arranged to spell out words including “slave,” “enslaves,” “controller,” “made,” and “prison.” Beneath the image, handwritten in graphite, is the title [Blues Wake] at left, edition [2/40] at center, and the artist’s signature and date [John T. Scott ‘03] at right.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 2003
• Created by: John T. Scott, American, 1940 - 2007
• Subject of: Huddie William Ledbetter, American, 1888 - 1949
• Type: woodcuts
• Medium: ink on paper
• Dimensions: H x W: 22 1/2 × 15 in. (57.2 × 38.1 cm)
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Art
• Topic: Blues (Music)
• Topic: Musicians
• Topic: Prisons
• Topic: Slavery
• Object number: 2020.58.6
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Juanita and Melvin Hardy
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: © John T. Scott, Artists Trust Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.