51 min
Blurred Identities: The Art and Audience of Lynching Photography National Gallery of Art | Talks
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- Visual Arts
Terence Washington, departments of academic programs and modern art, National Gallery of Art Between the late 19th and the mid-20th centuries, white Americans conducted thousands of lynchings, using these extrajudicial killings to intimidate non-whites and mete out what they considered to be justice. Increasingly, photographs were taken of lynchings and spectators and were distributed to extend the effect of the mobs’ violent tactics. A 1930 photograph by Lawrence Beitler (1885–1960) of a lynching in Marion, Indiana, inspired the song “Strange Fruit” and contributed to the anti-lynching movement in the United States. Terence Washington examines the photograph and the events surrounding the lynching, taking the blurry figure in the photograph’s foreground as a point of departure to discuss the mechanisms of American white supremacy.
Terence Washington, departments of academic programs and modern art, National Gallery of Art Between the late 19th and the mid-20th centuries, white Americans conducted thousands of lynchings, using these extrajudicial killings to intimidate non-whites and mete out what they considered to be justice. Increasingly, photographs were taken of lynchings and spectators and were distributed to extend the effect of the mobs’ violent tactics. A 1930 photograph by Lawrence Beitler (1885–1960) of a lynching in Marion, Indiana, inspired the song “Strange Fruit” and contributed to the anti-lynching movement in the United States. Terence Washington examines the photograph and the events surrounding the lynching, taking the blurry figure in the photograph’s foreground as a point of departure to discuss the mechanisms of American white supremacy.
51 min