SOULFUL ART

‘I’ve never worked on a show I’ve been this emotionally invested in,’ says US-born Tate Modern curator Zoe Whitley, who did a history of art MA at London’s Royal College of Art before joining the V&A. Her 2007 exhibition,

Uncomfortable Truths, commemorated the bicentenary of the abolition of the British slave trade; and, 10 years later, she’s continuing her pioneering work at Tate Modern with Soul of

a Nation (12 July–22 October), which features more than 150 works and asks what it meant to be a black artist in the US during the Civil Rights Movement. From the emergence of feminism to images of figures such as activist Angela Davis, Whitley gives an in-depth look at black America during the Sixties and Seventies. Here, she tells the stories behind some of the seminal pieces.

EMMA AMOS

EVA THE BABYSITTER 1973 ‘Amos was the only woman in Spiral, an art collective formed in 1963. With that in mind, this image becomes so poignant; it is her young daughter to the right, but Amos has made the subject the babysitter, who makes it possible for her to paint.’

WADSWORTH JARRELL

REVOLUTIONARY 1972 ‘Jarrell was in Africobra, a 1969 collective formed in Chicago by artists who were thinking about how art could serve the black community. This is a portrait of activist Angela Davis – it’s so uplifting, but also so politically forward.’

BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS

ICON FOR MY

MAN SUPERMAN (SUPERMAN NEVER SAVED ANY BLACK PEOPLE – BOBBY SEALE) 1969 ‘The bracketed part of the title is a quote from [Black Panther co-founder] Bobby Seale, who was on trial for conspiracy to incite violence. The judge gagged him; in a court of justice, he was unable to speak. This is overlaid with a far more playful approach here.’

ELIZABETH CATLETT

BLACK UNITY 1968 ‘On one side of the sculpture is the black fist of resistance. On the other side, there are two faces carved into it, so there’s a defiance but, equally, a tenderness. It’s interesting how one image can be read in two different ways.’