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Lynching

Southern Night

by James Turnbull

This powerful lithograph was produced one year before Turnbull painted Ride By Terror (also pictured on this website). The subject matter is basically the same, but in the painting the black family has been enlarged and carefully depicted while in this lithograph they are barely visible beneath the stalks of grain. 

The torches, burning cross, and burning fields of grain magnify the threat of death.  When you compare the painting and the print, do you find one more threatening and dramatic than the other? Why or why not? 

Learn more about this artist:

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James Turnbull - Southern Night

James Turnbull, Southern Night, 1940, Lithograph, 11 ½ x 15 in. 

Museum Purchase, Derby Fund, from the Philip J. and Suzanne Schiller Collection of American Social Commentary Art 1930-1970

Within Lynching...
Joe Jones Joe Jones Boris Gorelick Louis Lozowick James Turnbull James Turnbull

Race Relations Anti-Semitism Lynching
Spirituality Civil Rights
Romare Bearden
George Biddle
Julius T. Bloch
Adolf Dehn
Joseph Delaney
Boris Gorelick
Robert Gwathmey
Joe Jones
Jacob Lawrence
Louis Lozowick
Elijah Pierce
Ben Shahn
George Tooker
James Turnbull


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