The Card Series II: The Rounds VII

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

"The importance of home, family, and ancestry feeds my work entirely." - Whitfield Lovell Each of Whitfield Lovell’s charcoal drawings of unidentified individuals draws the viewer into an intimate world. The child of a mother born in the South and a father of West Indian background, he has drawn on both their traditions—the ability of black southerners to make something out of nothing, and the pride of West Indians who grew up where black families constituted the norm. Starting with found photographs, he lovingly captures their likenesses. Lovell has often combined his portraits with found objects. In this series, each of his 54 keenly rendered charcoal portraits—both probing and elegant--is paired with one of 54 round playing cards (a deck of 52 plus two jokers). A charcoal pencil drawing from Whitfield Lovell's Round Series. A portrait of an African American woman with her hair pulled back in braids. Beneath, the seven of diamonds.

Catalog date

2006-2011

Recorded subjects

African American; Art; Families; Identity

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