Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina

Storage Jar, 1857, alkaline-glazed stoneware, Dave (later recorded as David Drake; ca. 1801–1870s); Stony Bluff Manufactory, ca. 1848–1867, Old Edgefield District, South Carolina, 19 inches high, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Harriet Otis Cruft Fund and Otis Norcross Fund, 1997.10. Photo © 2022 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Woody De Othello (American, born 1991), Secret Safe, 2022, ceramic, glaze, and wood, 58 1/2 × 22 × 22 inches, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from Dwayne Majors and Belinda Stanley-Majors, the Decorative Arts Acquisition Trust, Gregor Turk and Murphy Townsend, Jane and Clay Jackson, and Friends of African American Art, 2023.8. Photo © Woody De Othello.

The High will be the exclusive Southeast venue for this landmark exhibition featuring nearly sixty ceramic objects created by enslaved African Americans in Edgefield, South Carolina, in the decades before the Civil War. Considered through the lens of current scholarship in the fields of history, literature, anthropology, material culture, diaspora, and African American studies, these nineteenth-century vessels testify to the lived experiences, artistic agency, and material knowledge of those who created them. The works include monumental storage jars by literate potter and poet Dave (later recorded as David Drake, ca. 1801–1870s) and rare examples of utilitarian wares and face vessels by unrecorded makers, including a ca. 1840 water cooler jug from the High’s collection. Hear Me Now will also link the past to the present with work by leading contemporary Black artists who have responded to or whose practice connects with the Edgefield story, including Theaster Gates, Simone Leigh, and Woody De Othello. This exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.