Skip Navigation

Revolutionary (Angela Davis)

Wadsworth A. Jarrell

Contemporary Art

Wadsworth Jarrell’s Revolutionary (Angela Davis) is one of the most recognized paintings associated with the Black Arts Movement, a cultural manifestation of the Black Power Movement. Artists of this movement sought to create uplifting images that called upon Black people to harness their collective power. The power of communal action is here expressed through a chromatic swirl of individual colors that coalesce into a unified image of the radical activist and intellectual Angela Davis. Davis’s militant clothing—complete with bullet cartridges—was modeled after the Revolutionary Suit designed by artist Jae Jarrell, Wadsworth’s wife. An icon of Black Power, Davis continues to lead the prison abolition movement today.
MEDIUM Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
DATES 1971
DIMENSIONS 64 x 51 in. (162.6 x 129.5 cm) frame: 65 3/4 × 52 5/8 × 2 5/8 in. (167 × 133.7 × 6.7 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Signed LR
INSCRIPTIONS Note attached to canvas of 2012.80.18, lower center, recto: “This is a replica of a revolutionary suit designed by Jae Jarrell in early 1969 for Africobra. 1. This suit is designed to reflect the present struggle of black people in the U.S.A. When Chuck jumps on and bastardize it as he does everything else we do, I want you to know he stole it from black giants - Africobra. Everytime one of our sisters wear one of Chucks stolen designs, they are helping to advertise Africobra. This suit is not for hunkies, strickly for black people in the present revolution, with a show of force for liberation”.
COLLECTIONS Contemporary Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 2012.80.18
CREDIT LINE Gift of R.M. Atwater, Anna Wolfrom Dove, Alice Fiebiger, Joseph Fiebiger, Belle Campbell Harriss, and Emma L. Hyde, by exchange, Designated Purchase Fund, Mary Smith Dorward Fund, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, and Carll H. de Silver Fund
PROVENANCE By 2008, acquired from the artist by David Lusenhop of Hamtramck, MI and M.M. Azzi Fine Art & Design, Inc., Chicago, IL; December 13, 2012, purchased from David Lusenhop and M.M. Azzi Fine Art & Design, Inc. by the Brooklyn Museum.
Provenance FAQ
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Wadsworth A. Jarrell (American, born 1929). Revolutionary (Angela Davis), 1971. Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 64 x 51 in. (162.6 x 129.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of R.M. Atwater, Anna Wolfrom Dove, Alice Fiebiger, Joseph Fiebiger, Belle Campbell Harriss, and Emma L. Hyde, by exchange, Designated Purchase Fund, Mary Smith Dorward Fund, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, and Carll H. de Silver Fund, 2012.80.18. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2012.80.18_PS9.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 2012.80.18_PS9.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2013
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT © Wadsworth Jarrell
The Brooklyn Museum holds a non-exclusive license to reproduce images of this work of art from the rights holder named here. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org. If you wish to contact the rights holder for this work, please email copyright@brooklynmuseum.org and we will assist if we can.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.