CT artist posthumously wins Pulitzer for memoir
Ayear after his death, New Haven artist Winfred Rembert is still making waves as he posthumously won a Pulitzer for his biography co-written by Tufts University professor Erin I. Kelly.
“Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South” was published in September of 2021 and detailed Rembert’s life during which he witnessed lynchings, spent time in prison, fell in love with his wife Patsy and became an artist. During his life, Rembert was open about his past and was the subject of a documentary, “All Me: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert.”
In the announcement on the Pulitzer Prize’s website, the biography is described as “vivid, confrontational, revelatory and complex.” “‘Chasing Me to My Grave’ is a searing memoir in prose and painted leather that celebrates Black life and summons readers to confront painful and urgent realities at the heart of American history and society,” it goes on to say.
Rembert’s wife Patsy said she was ecstatic when she learned about the award and that she and her children are proud of their father’s biography. “He would have been so delighted, so happy, so proud that someone believed in him enough to take the time, like Erin did to write his story,” she said.
Kelly thanked both Winfred and Patsy for allowing her to share their story. She noted that Rembert’s biography features a chapter about Patsy and that she played a huge role in his life.
“It is very moving to receive this award, together with Winfred Rembert. This great honor recognizes the significance of Winfred’s life, as he understood and explains it, in his words and from his perspective. He had a remarkable ability to depict his life experiences in both paintings and prose, which are intertwined in the book. I am sad that he is not here to enjoy this moment, but I am thrilled to celebrate this book and to share it widely,” Kelly said.
Rembert died on March 31, 2021, prior to the publication of his biography, but he did read the final proof before his death. Patsy extended her gratitude to Kelly for writing the biography with her late husband. “I’m so thankful to Erin for getting it down and researching it and making sure she got everything he wanted said. They went over and over it again until they got it right,” she said. “I’m proud to be part of her life and I’m proud of her as well.”
Rembert and Kelly first met at McBlain Books in Hamden, and after the bookstore’s owner Phil McBlain gave the two a nudge, they began working on Rembert’s biography in March 2018. Over the next few years Kelly met with Rembert a few times a month at his home in New Haven to work on it.
“Winfred courageously revisited the trauma of his youth in Jim Crow Georgia, including the brutality of his incarceration on chain gangs. I hope that his story will bring attention to the lives of the very many people who have been and are still being harmed by the overly punitive American criminal justice system. Let us also draw strength and hope from the realization of Winfred’s courage, his determination, and his remarkable talents,” Kelly said. “I am grateful to the many people who helped to make this book possible.”
Both Kelly and Patsy said that they believed it was important to share Rembert’s story because they said the brutality Rembert faced in his own life isn’t too different from the police brutality stories that still make headlines today. Patsy said she hopes people will read her late husband’s biography and “open their eyes” to what needs to be changed.
Kelly echoed Patsy’s sentiment saying, “It was important to Winfred that people be educated by thinking about the stories of what people have gone through in the South and as Patsy was saying, things that people are still enduring today. I think he viewed himself as an educator and he wanted people to talk about history because of its connection to the present.”
For more information about “Chase Me to My Grave” visit bloomsbury.com.
Nationally known, Georgia-born folk artist Winfred Rembert, who lived for much of his life in New Haven's Newhallville section, died in 2021. Above, “Overseers in the Field #1” by Winfred Rembert. His posthumous memoir co-written with Erin I. Kelly, “Chase Me to My Grave” won a Pulitzer.