“I’m telling a story about my life.”
R aised in rural Georgia during the height of Jim Crow, Winfred Rembert’s early years were riddled with racial discrimination. He spent his childhood working in the cotton fields in his hometown of Cuthbert, with labor taking priority over his education from a young age. In 1965, Rembert attended a peaceful protest which turned violent, resulting in his arrest after he attempted to flee in a stolen car. His failed escape from the local jail in 1967 resulted in a near-lynching at the hands of his captors, a horrific torture which would haunt Rembert for the remainder of his life.
During his seven years incarcerated, a fellow inmate showed Rembert how to tool and craft leather. He emerged from prison a self-taught artist whose autobiographical subjects comment on his deeply personal experiences from life in the American South. “I never dreamed that I had the talent to become an artist,” said Rembert, who pursued art as a full-t.mes career later in life at the age of fifty one (as quoted in Ashes to Ashes, 2019). From cotton picking scenes to chain gang pictures commemorating his t.mes in jail, Rembert’s leather compositions are a reflection of his complex identity as a black man in Jim Crow-era Georgia.
Struggle and oppression are common themes in Rembert’s oeuvre as a result of the unfathomable challenges he overcame in his early years; however, his dynamic body of work simultaneously showcases uplifting scenes that engage with community and southern culture. The present work, Untitled, hails from the latter group, and is a celebration of Rembert’s childhood and cultural memories spent in church on Cuthbert’s Hamilton Avenue. “Southwest Georgians had a unique musical style perfected in the black church,” scholars Irma Watkins-Owens and Clifton Watson explain in the exhibition catalogue for the artist's 2012 solo show at the Hudson River Museum entitled Winfred Rembert: Amazing Grace (Exh. Cat., Yonkers, Hudson River Museum, Winfred Rembert: Amazing Grace, pp. 26-27). Rembert looks back on his memories attending church with his mother fondly. “I always wanted to sing gospel and have the voice of a country preacher,” he recalls (Ibid, p. 108). The sense of harmony and shared experience that Rembert appreciated about attending church in his hometown comes alive in Untitled. Through the artist’s expert craftsmanship and vibrant application of color, the preacher at center and the energetic churchgoers form a cohesive and energetic image.
“Winfred Rembert, like all true artists, shows us his world through his own eye’s memory."
The intersection between church, music, and the black experience has long been recorded in the visual arts, as is the case with the present painting. Untitled recalls themes and stylistic choices from Jacob Lawrence’s body of work in particular. The motif of the preacher at center in Untitled shares striking similarities to Lawrence’s fourth painting from Eight Studies for the Book of Genesis (fig. 3). Rembert and Lawrence both depict their respective preachers as animated figures with their arms raised and mouths agape in song or prayer, each man positioned behind the pulpit. In addition to the compositional similarities between Untitled and the fourth study for The Book of Genesis, Rembert and Lawrence disperse striking arrangements of primary colors in order to adequately convey the liveliness of the occasion. By depicting such a joyous moment full of music and worship, Rembert joins a long line of American artists in celebrating the intersection between race and community that emerges from southern black churches.
- Jacob Lawrence and the Brick Motif
Jacob Lawrence frequently employed brick in his earliest compositions from the 1930s, a motif which Rembert applies in the present composition. This textured wall showcases the artist’s skill with the tooled leather medium, creating a sense of depth within the painting in a manner that is reminiscent of Lawrence's practice.
Jacob Lawrence, The Eviction, 1935. Gouache and collage on cardboard. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Michener Acquisitions Fund, P1969.12.2. © 2023 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. - Intersection of Church, Race, and Community
The tradition of black artists illustrating the ritual of church-going as an act of community and cultural unity is one that many of Rembert’s predecessors have experimented with throughout the early twentieth century.
William H. Johnson, Going to Church, ca. 1940-1941. Oil on burlap. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.1003 - Theme of the Musician
Like Rembert, Romare Bearden was raised in the South and experienced segregation and discrimination as a result of his race. Rembert’s autobiographical approach to art is reminiscent of Bearden’s, who often incorporated music, cultural motifs, and memories from his childhood in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.
Romare Bearden, Gospel Morning, 1987. Mixed media collage with paper and fabric on Masonite. © 2023 Romare Bearden Foundation/VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Following his release from prison in 1974, Rembert moved north and relocated to New Haven. He lived the remainder of life in Connecticut, producing an expressive body of work that harkened back to his early life experiences in Georgia. The York Square Cinema in New Haven championed the artist’s work, holding his first solo exhibition in 1998. He received his first major museum exhibition at the Hudson River Museum in 2012, and today, his work resides in many renowned institutional collects ions, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and more.
Rembert often gifted his leather-tooled paintings to close family and friends, as is true with the present work. Untitled was a gift to his friend Arthur R. Berry, an artist and professor who maintained close relationships with Rembert and other black artists over the course of his lifet.mes . Untitled is consigned by Berry’s descendants and has never appeared at public auction.
