A CONVERSATION WITH JERRY PINKNEY
On November 14th, 2019, artist Jerry Pinkney sat down to discuss his work with William Valerio, Woodmere’s Patricia Van Burgh Allison Director and CEO; Rachel McCay, Assistant Curator; and Hildy Tow, Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Curator of Education. WILLIAM VALERIO:
were seen as not exotic enough. One of
Jerry, thank you
for joining us today, and I’m glad we
the challenges for me was how to get
have this opportunity to talk about the
close to their history with very little to
exhibition and the rich history that runs
work with.
through your many books, which are so
I started doing my own research about
relevant today. The first book I’d like to
the Igbo for the book. You will hear me
talk about is The Old African, which you
say oftentimes that the stars were in
worked on with author Julius Lester. It
alignment when I went to the Schomburg
goes to a deep place that we all—white
Center for Research in Black Culture.
people, black people—have to come to
Sylviane Diouf, who was on staff, had
terms with, a pain that the centuries of
just gotten a manuscript from John Oriji,
enslavement in the United States has
who is an Igbo historian and Igbo himself.
inflicted and continues to inflict. JERRY PINKNEY:
I contacted John and he agreed to work with me. He became an invaluable
My focus on The Old
resource.
African was to paint the Igbo people as closely as possible to how they lived
One of my concerns in entering this
their lives, and the events that brought
project was that I was still viewing it from
about enslavement. The book is about
the other side of the water. I was still
mythology and hope. My intent with the
viewing Igbo culture with the baggage
art was to show the Igbo and their belief
that I carried, and my concern was
practices, which was difficult because we
whether I had a right to visually speak to
don’t know much about them—they were
the Igbo culture and Nigeria. Even as a
not documented, perhaps because they 40