Issues to Consider











          Mending Socks is a portrait of the artist's grandmother. Does it conform to your ideas of what a portrait should look like? You may want to examine how Mending Socks differs from other portraits and why that may be. To do this you could compare it with one which may be considered more "conventional," Mrs. James Russell by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815). What differences do you see? Clarify these for yourself. For instance, the types of colors used, where and how each woman is represented, what is represented with her, what the focus of each painting is, etc.
          A portrait can serve as a visual record of a person, but it can also serve as a definition of that person for the viewer. Does each portrait give you an idea of the life led by its subject? The above text points out that each of the objects shown in Mending Socks tells the viewer something about Emily Motley. Why do you think it was desirable to include Emily Motley's possessions while Mrs. Russell is portrayed alone, with only a book in her lap? If Archibald Motley had portrayed his grandmother alone, without her defining possessions, what would a viewer in 1924 have thought of her? You might need to do some investigation since the kind of lives that nineteenth-century African-American women led is not widely known now and was certainly less so when this portrait was painted.
          The African-American experience as a whole is a topic that you might want to explore in connection with this painting. Emily Motley was part of a generation of African-Americans who experienced the end of slavery, Reconstruction and the migration of thousands of Blacks to Northern cities in search of work and better lives called "The Great Migration." You may want to look at this portrait with these experiences in mind. To help you in this you may want to view the series of paintings that the artist Jacob Lawrence created in 1940 called The Migration Series, illustrating this important period in American history. Though Archibald Motley was trained in Chicago, he was active during the "Harlem Renaissance" based in New York City. You may want to explore how the content of this portrait compares to subjects popular during this time. Were African-American women portrayed? Were their lives the subject of works of literature, art or music? All these questions may shed light on how Emily Motley was portrayed by her grandson, what her position in her family seems to have been and what her possessions say about the kind of life she lived.


Bibliography for further reading

Archibald Motley:
The Art of Archibald Motley, Jr. by Jontyle Theresa Robinson and Wendy Greenhouse (Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1991) Art Reserve: ND237/.M8524/A4/1991


African-American Art:
African American Art and Artists by Samella Lewis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) Art Reserve: N6538/.N5/L38/1990

A History of African-Ameican Artists, from 1792 to the Present by Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993) Art Reserve: N6538/.N5/B38/1993

African-American Experience
For this subject you can do a subject search in the online catalogue to find literature matching your particular interests. You may want to note that there are numerous books on the lives of African-American women at the turn of the century which may be relevant.
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