Details

Title

Three Ways to Send a Message: Telephone, Telegram, Tell-a-Woman

Artist/Maker

Elijah Pierce (American, 1892–1984)

Date

ca. 1941

Medium

Wood and paint

Dimensions

15 1/2 x 18 x 1 1/2 inches

Credit

Purchase with T. Marshall Hahn Folk Art Acquisition Fund for the T. Marshall Hahn Collection

Accession #

1998.80

Location

Currently not on view

Elijah Pierce was a Baptist minister who used his carving skills to create “sermons in wood,” which he used as teaching tools. Illustrated on the left panel of this complex composition are a telegram bicycle messenger, a telephone, and the act of “telling a woman.” On the right panel is a portrait of George Washington Carver surrounded by the peanuts and sweet potatoes of his famed agricultural experiments. Together these images address various forms of communication, from private gossip to public education. This work concerns the central importance of oral tradition within any community as well as the moral challenges inherent in storytelling.

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