Photograph by Ed Pollard, Sony a7R II 2021.

Untitled (Barbados)

Artist Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence (American, 1913 - 2005)

CultureAmerican

Date1945

MediumOil on canvasboard

Dimensions24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm)
Overall, Frame: 25 1/2 × 29 3/8 × 1 1/4 in. (64.8 × 74.6 × 3.2 cm)

SignedThe artist’s signature, “G. Knight, L” and date “1945” are written on the bottom right corner.

Credit LineMuseum purchase

Object number2021.32

Not on view

DescriptionA landscape scene of a beach shoreline along a grassy hill. The left side of the scene is the sea with large rocks crashing along a white sandy beach, in the middle section of the canvas. Two red canoes also sit in the beach. The center of the scene is divided by a roadway that edges along the green hill, and just on the other side are four, white bungalow houses with bright red roofs. The scene is at either evening or daybreak as there are numerous clouds in the sky and an orange tinge in the background.
Label TextGwendolyn Knight American, born Barbados, 1913–2005 Untitled (Barbados), 1945 Oil on canvas board In this painting, the artist Gwendolyn Knight depicts from memory her birthplace, Barbados. Although she left the country for the United States as a child, Knight held dual citizenship (Barbados was a British protectorate). It was her British passport that enabled her to go with her husband to Nigeria in 1964 after the U.S. State Department denied her a visa. Chrysler Museum of Art, Museum purchase 2021.32ProvenanceFrom the Lawrence estate to DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY. Purchased from DC Moore by the Chrysler Museum of Art, September 2021.Exhibition HistoryEl Museo del Barrio, New York, NY, Caribbean: Crossroads of the World, June 12, 2012 - January 6, 2013. The Cummer Museum, Jacksonville, FL, Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman, October 12, 2018 - April 7, 2019; Traveled to the New York Historical Society, NY, May 3 - July 28, 2019; the Palmer Museum of Art, PA, August 24 - December 8, 2019; Dixon Gallery & Gardens, TN, January 19, 2020 - March 22, 2020. DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY, Intersections: Jacob Lawrence and Gwen Knight, February 16 - March 27, 2021. "Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club,” Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, October 7, 2022 - January 8, 2023; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA, February 10 - May 7, 2023; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH, June 3 - September 3, 2023. Published ReferencesCaribbean: Art at the Crossroads of the World, Exh. cat. New York: El Museo del Barrio in association with Yale University Press, 2013, p. 250 illus. Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman, Exh. Cat. Jacksonville, FL: The Cummer Museum in association with D. Giles Ltd, 2018.