Celebration

Charles Searles, Celebration, 1975, acrylic on canvas, 27 ¹⁄₂ x 81 ³⁄₄ in. (70.0 x 207.6 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, Art-in-Architecture Program, 1977.47.31

Artwork Details

Title: Celebration
Artist: Charles Searles
Date: 1975
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: 27 ¹⁄₂ x 81 ³⁄₄ in. (70.0 x 207.6 cm)
Credit Line: Transfer from the General Services Administration, Art-in-Architecture Program
Mediums: acrylic
Mediums Description: acrylic on canvas
Classifications: Painting
Subjects: African American
Recreation — dancing
Performing arts — music — drum
Landscape — time — sunrise
Study — mural study
Ceremony — festival
General Services Administration — Art-in-Architecture Program
Object Number: 1977.47.31
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1977.47.31

Artwork Description

In 1974, Searles was invited to paint a mural for the William J. Green Jr. Federal Building in his hometown of Philadelphia. Celebration, a study for that mural, fuses the energy of an American street festival with memories of Searles’s 1972 trip to Nigeria. The canvas is filled with syncopated color, the echoing forms of circular drumheads, and the waving arms of dancers. Searles suggests the duality of the human psyche by dividing the figures vertically into light and dark sections. At the bottom center, he included a child with a masklike face and spiky hair in homage to his young daughter, who died in 1971.

African Amerian Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond, 2012