Youth (Head in Wood)

Nancy Elizabeth Prophet

1 of 4

Object Label

At a time when there were few professional African American artists, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet trained at the Rhode Island School of Design and carved powerful sculptures in hardwood, such as Untitled (Head). The artist, who endured decades of poverty and hunger in order to pursue her career, produced works characterized by somber dignity and idealized but expressive facial features. This sculpture is one of only about a dozen known works by Prophet still in existence.

Caption

Nancy Elizabeth Prophet American, 1890–1960. Youth (Head in Wood), ca. 1930. Wood, head without base: 12 1/2 × 6 1/2 × 7 in. (31.8 × 16.5 × 17.8 cm) mount (dims incorporating mount block): 19 × 805 × 10 1/4 in. (48.3 × 2044.7 × 26 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum Fund for African American Art in honor of Saundra Williams-Cornwell, 2014.3. Orphaned work (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2014.3_front_PS9.jpg)

Gallery

Not on view

Collection

American Art

Title

Youth (Head in Wood)

Date

ca. 1930

Medium

Wood

Classification

Sculpture

Dimensions

head without base: 12 1/2 × 6 1/2 × 7 in. (31.8 × 16.5 × 17.8 cm) mount (dims incorporating mount block): 19 × 805 × 10 1/4 in. (48.3 × 2044.7 × 26 cm)

Inscriptions

Incised signature behind proper right ear

Credit Line

Brooklyn Museum Fund for African American Art in honor of Saundra Williams-Cornwell

Accession Number

2014.3

Rights

Orphaned work

After diligent research, the Museum is unable to locate contact information for the artist or artist's estate, or there are no known living heirs.Copyright for this work may be controlled by the artist, the artist's estate, or other rights holders. A more detailed analysis of its rights history may, however, place it in the public domain. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.

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