Resting on the Goalpost. Washington, D.C., June 1969, from the series Southern Roads/City Pavements

Roland L. Freeman, Resting on the Goalpost. Washington, D.C., June 1969, from the series Southern Roads/City Pavements, 1969, printed 1982, gelatin silver print, sheet: 11 x 14 in. (28.0 x 35.6 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of George H. Dalsheimer, 1991.80.8, © 1969, Roland L. Freeman

Artwork Details

Title: Resting on the Goalpost. Washington, D.C., June 1969, from the series Southern Roads/City Pavements
Artist: Roland L. Freeman
Date: 1969, printed 1982
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: sheet: 11 x 14 in. (28.0 x 35.6 cm.)
Copyright: © 1969, Roland L. Freeman
Credit Line: Gift of George H. Dalsheimer
Mediums Description: gelatin silver print
Classifications: Photography
Photoprint
Subjects: Landscape — District of Columbia — Washington
Architecture — other — playground
Figure group — male
African American
Object Number: 1991.80.8
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1991.80.8

Artwork Description

Freeman has been on the streets since he was an eight-year-old who skipped school to ride the Baltimore trolleys. He worked with the arabbers, vendors who peddled ice, coal, and fresh produce from horse-drawn wagons, sold newspapers door-to-door, and joined a street gang. Concerned that back-alley life would lead to trouble, his mother sent him to live on a tobacco farm in southern Maryland. These experiences, and the people, he met, shaped the work of a man who in 2007 was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship and the Bess Lomax Hawes Award for a lifetime of artistic excellence and contributions to the nation’s traditional arts heritage.

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