This is a relief print created with black ink on paper. In it Woodruff represents the murder of a Black man killed by racial terrorists in a quiet, somber scene. The print shows the body of the man murdered in a lynching, after the murder was perpetrated. The man's body is alone on the steps to the doors of a church. Woodruff has angeled his face away from view, and a rope is seen around his neck. His proper right arm disappears behind his waist, likely bound with his left behind his back. On either side of the church stairs are leafy plants, and stained glass windows flank the church doors.

By Parties Unknown

Hale Woodruff, Printed by Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, Published by Marshall Arts, Ltd./Woodruff Project

1935; printed 1996

  • Titles Hale Woodruff: Selections from the Atlanta Period, 1931-1946 (Portfolio)
  • Artist Hale Woodruff, American, 1900 - 1980
  • Medium linoleum cut with chine-collé
  • Credit Line Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Partial gift of Elnora, Inc. in honor of Auldlyn Higgins Williams and E.T. Williams, Jr., and purchase with funds provided by the Friends of American Art, with additional funds provided by Lydia Cheney and Jim Sokol, Beverly and Stanley Erdreich, Dr. and Mrs. James Kamplain, and Martha Pezrow, AFI.4.2020.2
  • Object Name print
  • Classification Prints

See More of the Collection

Courtyard Scene, M. R. Hubbert Smith, linocut
Reading by the Fire, Enoch Wood Perry, oil on canvas
Sammy Davis, Jr., Sid Avery, gelatin silver print
Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, Photograph by Dorothea Lange, Photogravure by Jon Goodman, photogravure