Still Life with Fetish
A prominent and versatile printmaker, Jennings executed this engraving during his employment with the Works Progress Administration, part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Composed of flowing lines that describe a wide range of textures and materials, Still Life with Fetish showcases Jennings’s elegant draftsmanship. Placed prominently near the center of the composition, an African carving sits between a healthy sansevieria plant and a funerary urn. Evoking the artist’s own African ancestry, the sculpted figure also mediates literally and symbolically between life and death.
Artwork Details
- Title: Still Life with Fetish
- Artist: Wilmer Angier Jennings (American, 1910–1990)
- Date: 1937
- Medium: Wood engraving
- Dimensions: 15 7/8 in. × 11 in. (40.3 × 28 cm)
- Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 1999
- Object Number: 1999.529.74
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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