Painted BLACK
Thomas B. Worth,
The Fiddler, 1868;
Oil on board,
12 x 8-3/4 “.
Winthrop Duthie Turney,
The Baker;
Pencil on paper,
16 x 13-7/8”.
112
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g a z i n e
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the boots of a smartly dressed,
likely wealthy and world traveling black gentleman.
“As a collection,” O’Donnell
stated, “the paintings leave
the viewer with the unsettling
sense that there is much about
these quiet scenes that remains
unseen. For all they tell us, there
is much more we do not know.”
After acquiring his first work
in 1977—William Aiken Walker’s Man in Tattered Clothes
c om
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e p t e m b e r
2015
(1886), which depicts a vagabond in an almost comically
distressed overcoat cheerfully
posing for his full-length portrait—Surovek had no idea that
“the Negro subject” would be
his life’s passion. “Why this
became the focus of my collecting is still a mystery to me,” said
Surovek. “I knew no one else
(except Bill Cosby) who collected in the genre, and therefore, it presented no conflict
with the purchases I was making on behalf of my patrons,
clients, and friends. In fact, the
more I learned, the more I realized that the Negro subject was
almost completely overlooked.
It didn’t take much to see that
most of the painters in 19th and
20th century America were
white, but they regularly painted Negro subjects, sometimes
in what were their masterpieces. Yet, there was absolutely
no scholarship on the topic. In
my years as a museum director,
I never once ran across a study
that addressed the significance
or important of the Negro subject in American art. If I could
hone my focus and stay the
course, I had an opportunity to
make a contribution.” On View