The Door to Lee Perry's, Washington Gardens: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A color photograph of the exterior door to Lee "Scratch" Perry's in the Washington Gardens neighborhood of Kingston, Jamaica.

The image depits a colorful, closed wooden door with barred side window and brick exterior. The window has metal bars in a decorative scroll design. The door, window, bars, and brick wall have been red, yellow and green. The left side of the window, next to the door, has a wide streak of purple and two purple hand prints are visible in the red paint of the top left portion of the door. The center of the door has been covered in blue and purple toned images of Emperor Haile Selassie I. There are colorful, metallic stickers of Selassie I across the top of the door and two near the center of the window. At the bottom of the window is a poster with blue artwork, colorful mettalic stickers, a playing card with Selassie I and a sticker reading "I [red heart] ETHIOPIA]. A small Jamaican flag hangs from the top left of the window and a large green plant is to the left of the window, in front of the painted brick exterior. There is a handwritten inscription by Bill Adler on the back with the title, location, date and photographer.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 2003
• Photograph by: Peter Rickards, Jamaican, 1969 - 2014
• Subject of: Lee Perry, Jamaican, 1936 - 2021
• Type: color prints (photographs)
• Medium: dye and photographic gelatin on photographic paper
• Dimensions: H x W (Sheet): 13 7/8 × 10 7/8 in. (35.3 × 27.6 cm)
• Dimensions: H x W (Image): 13 7/16 × 10 1/8 in. (34.2 × 25.7 cm)
• Place captured: Jamaica, Caribbean, North and Central America
• Cultural Place: Ethiopia, Africa
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Art
• Topic: Business
• Topic: Photography
• Topic: Rastafarianism
• Topic: Reggae (Music)
• Topic: Religion
• Object number: 2015.132.19
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
• 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: © Peter L.T. Rickards and Diana A. Rickards Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.