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Crawford Gillis
American, 1914–2000
"In Custody" (Project for a Southern Armory) was exhibited in New York at the Delphic Studios in January, 1938. In a review of that exibition, the writer asked Gillis where he had seen the subject. "I didn't see it," he explained. "They announced they would build a new armory in my town (Selma, Alabama), and this is how I felt it would work out."
Gillis' painting portrays a frightened black man in the custody of National Guardsmen. The look of terror on the figure's face conveys his reaction to an environment that was overtly hostile to African-Americans in the time of Jim Crow laws, combined with other abusive practices that operated outside of the legitimate justice system. Within the small-town cultures of the South at that time, poor people, white and black, had little recourse when they became ensnared within webs of hatred and greed.
American, 1914–2000
In Custody (Project for a Southern Armory)
1936
Object Type:
Painting
Creation Place:
North America, American, Alabama
Dimensions:
18 3/4 x 23 1/2 in. (47.63 x 59.69 cm)
Medium and Support:
Watercolor on paper
Accession Number:
2013.0013
Credit Line:
Gift of George W. and Sue Royer, Jr.
"In Custody" (Project for a Southern Armory) was exhibited in New York at the Delphic Studios in January, 1938. In a review of that exibition, the writer asked Gillis where he had seen the subject. "I didn't see it," he explained. "They announced they would build a new armory in my town (Selma, Alabama), and this is how I felt it would work out."
Gillis' painting portrays a frightened black man in the custody of National Guardsmen. The look of terror on the figure's face conveys his reaction to an environment that was overtly hostile to African-Americans in the time of Jim Crow laws, combined with other abusive practices that operated outside of the legitimate justice system. Within the small-town cultures of the South at that time, poor people, white and black, had little recourse when they became ensnared within webs of hatred and greed.
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