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Artworks
Sherman Beck USA, b. 1942
Portrait of Shirley Chisholm, 2022Acrylic on canvas40 x 24 in
101.6 x 61 cm8507Further images
This portrait memorializes Shirley Chisholm. Born in Brooklyn in 1924, Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus...This portrait memorializes Shirley Chisholm. Born in Brooklyn in 1924, Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and of the National Women’s Political Caucus, and the first Black woman to be a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States. Here, Beck portrays Chisholm as she appeared on January 25, 1972, as she announced her candidacy for President. Rather than posing her turned to the side as she is in most photographs of the moment, Beck portrays Chisholm facing straight ahead, and has modified the geometry of Chisholm’s dress from rectangles to wavy, linear patterns, He has also expanded the five-band silver necklace Chisholm wore on the day into a five-band red, green, and black necklace, representative of the colors of the Pan-African flag. According to the The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, which adopted the flag in 1920, “Red is the color of the blood which men must shed for their redemption and liberty; black is the color of the noble and distinguished race to which we belong; green is the color of the luxuriant vegetation of our Motherland.” On Chisholm’s gravestone, the epitaph reads, “Unbought and Unbossed,” the same slogan she used in her Presidential run.2of 2