Untitled (Standing Woman)

This terracotta figure of a woman was created by the San Francisco–based artist Sargent Claude Johnson in the 1930s, as Black artists derived inspiration from the New Negro Movement and its leader Alain Locke, whose encouragement of art that celebrated contemporary Black life and African ancestral traditions led Johnson to refer to African sculpture in the mask-like form of the face seen here. Employing a modernist reduction of form in the simplified, cylindrical body, Johnson created work that exudes a quiet gravity and power, within a practice he could only pursue outside his various jobs until he received W.P.A. Federal Art Project commissions in 1937 and 1938.