The Card Players

Hale Woodruff

1930 · Oil on canvas · Modern and Contemporary Art

Woodruff lived and worked in Paris from 1926 to 1930 with support from the Harmon Foundation, a Chicago-based organization which promoted aspiring Black American artists. The Card Players dynamically synthesizes the wide range of sources he encountered during this period, including Cubism, West and Central African art, and paintings by Paul Cézanne (1839–1906). Two figures with heads resembling Fang-Betsi sculptures play cards at a table in emulation of Cézanne’s famed series on the same theme. Angular forms pervade the composition, many of them accentuated with thick outlines akin to carved wood. Upon his return to the United States, Woodruff became a prolific printmaker and muralist whose work examined and celebrated Black American culture and history.

Artist

Hale Woodruff

Date

1930

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

George A. Hearn Fund, 2015