I Made Space for a Good Man

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.

A color lithograph featuring a film photography triptych of self-portraits by Deborah Willis. The portraits are in black-and-white, with a pink-tinted background, set the against turquoise background of the print. In each portrait, a pregnant Willis sits in a wicker chair next to a closed door. In the first two, she wears a black dress, her eyes cast downward. In the first image, her hands are on her pregnant belly. In the second, another set of hands reach from out of frame to cradle her belly, and Willis holds those hands at the wrist. In the third image, Willis reclines in the chair, nude, looking directly at the camera. In white handwritten script above the images is: “A woman taking space from,” “You took the space from,” and “I made a space for.” In the same script beneath each image is: “a good man.

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