The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 23, 2024

Ol' Peckerwood

Ol' Peckerwood

1939
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Although he worked in a wide variety of media, Elmer William Brown is best known for the murals that he created for public spaces as part of the Works Progress Administration during the 1940s.

Description

In this print, Elmer William Brown conveyed the horror of his experiences in a Missouri prison. The artist served time on a chain gang there after being arrested for illegally riding freight trains. The work's title, "peckerwood," was a derogatory term for poor and bigoted white men from the rural South. Here, it refers to the prison overseer depicted in the foreground, who Brown described as the "evilest man he ever met." After his release, the artist came to Cleveland in 1929, where he studied at the Cleveland School of Art and befriended Langston Hughes at Karamu House, a center for Black culture in the city.
  • Elmer William Brown Entry Card to 1939 May Show. Cleveland Museum of Art May Show Records, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org
    Kraynak, Scott, Henry Adams, Douglas Max Utter, William G. Scheele, R. A. Washington, and Mike Hudson. The Heart of Cleveland. Shaker Hts, OH: Red Giant Books, 2018. Reproduced: P. 29, fig. 28
  • The Cleveland Museum of Art (1/26/2014 - 5/18/2014); "Our Stories: African American Prints and Drawings"
    The May Show: 21st Annual Exhibition of Works by Cleveland Artists and Craftsmen. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 3-June 11, 1939).
  • {{cite web|title=Ol' Peckerwood|url=false|author=Elmer William Brown|year=1939|access-date=23 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1939.240