Untitled (Shadows) 1930

Curator: I find this work incredibly moving; it’s called "Untitled (Shadows)" by Albert Alexander Smith, and it's dated 1930. It’s a pencil drawing, a print, actually. Editor: The moment I saw it, I felt a wave of… longing? There's something very tender and melancholy about the scene. The grey scale is beautiful. Curator: Yes, there’s a distinct gravitas. Note the two women in the foreground, one holding a baby. They appear to be watching a lone figure on horseback wading through the water, disappearing, even, into the background. It evokes such potent imagery. Editor: The rider on horseback – a messenger? A traveler? He has the iconography of someone crossing a border. And those figures seem rooted, immobile almost, even in the landscape. Is there perhaps a kind of watchfulness, or vigilance to that rooted quality? Curator: I think that is astute! Water as both a connector and separator of figures speaks to themes of both longing and, frankly, forced migrations within African American communities. Smith was certainly involved with artistic explorations within the Black Arts Movement and his work reflects an engagement with themes of movement, family and displacement. Editor: Exactly! It’s a landscape loaded with cultural memory. And those looming trees, the shadowed water – there's an echo of myth in the way Smith composes everything. It feels like something very old, told and retold. What stands out for me are those cattails. Curator: How so? Editor: They feel so specifically chosen – traditionally, cattails represent provision, new life. Those women become, for me, these maternal archetypes, guardians of survival and protectors of community heritage, the knowledge bearers. Smith's simple style brings that into full focus. Curator: A subtle point, but crucial. That tension he builds between landscape and human presence. Those pencil strokes capture such emotion and strength! Editor: He uses the shadows brilliantly – those aren't just visual absences. It's as though the figures themselves embody absence, that the print serves almost like a kind of melancholic witness bearing! The shadows convey what isn't visible, the historical scars, the invisible labor. Curator: Looking at this, I can’t help but consider how images have this capacity to condense histories and social realities. Smith invites us to remember. Editor: Absolutely. He compels us to keep looking, beyond what’s depicted, for those shadows, and the figures that cast them. It makes you grateful to the witnesses, doesn’t it? The keepers of history?