Cotton Pickers 1940

"Cotton Pickers" is a 1940 watercolor by William H. Johnson, a prominent African American artist known for his simplified style and bold use of color. The painting portrays a group of Black people picking cotton in a field, highlighting the realities of labor and life in the American South during the Jim Crow era. Johnson's simplified forms and flattened perspective, characteristic of his style, create a powerful and evocative image, emphasizing the labor and endurance of the figures.