Kara Elizabeth Walker

American, born 1969

Resurrection Story with Patrons

Kara Walker (American, born 1969). Detail from Resurrection Story with Patrons, 2017. Triptych: three etchings with aquatint, sugar-lift, spit-bite, and drypoint, edition 14/25; center sheet: 39 1/2 x 49 inches (100.3 x 124.5 cm), right sheet: 39 5/8 x 30 inches (100.7 x 76.2 cm), left sheet: 39 5/8 x 30 inches (100.7 x 76.2 cm). Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Albert H. Tracy Fund, by exchange, 2017. © 2017 Kara Walker.

© Kara Walker

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Kara Walker (American, born 1969). Detail from Resurrection Story with Patrons, 2017. Triptych: three etchings with aquatint, sugar-lift, spit-bite, and drypoint, edition 14/25; center sheet: 39 1/2 x 49 inches (100.3 x 124.5 cm), right sheet: 39 5/8 x 30 inches (100.7 x 76.2 cm), left sheet: 39 5/8 x 30 inches (100.7 x 76.2 cm). Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Albert H. Tracy Fund, by exchange, 2017. © 2017 Kara Walker.

© Kara Walker

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

Kara Walker (American, born 1969). Detail from Resurrection Story with Patrons, 2017. Triptych: three etchings with aquatint, sugar-lift, spit-bite, and drypoint, edition 14/25; center sheet: 39 1/2 x 49 inches (100.3 x 124.5 cm), right sheet: 39 5/8 x 30 inches (100.7 x 76.2 cm), left sheet: 39 5/8 x 30 inches (100.7 x 76.2 cm). Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Albert H. Tracy Fund, by exchange, 2017. © 2017 Kara Walker.

© Kara Walker

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

Resurrection Story with Patrons, 2017

Artwork Details

Materials

triptych: three etchings with aquatint, sugar-lift, spit-bite, and drypoint

Edition:

14/25

Measurements

center sheet: 39 1/2 x 49 inches (100.33 x 124.46 cm); right sheet: 39 5/8 x 30 inches (100.65 x 76.2 cm); left sheet: 39 5/8 x 30 inches (100.65 x 76.2 cm)

Collection Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Credit

Albert H. Tracy Fund, by exchange, 2017

Accession ID

P2017:13a-c

In Resurrection Story with PatronsKara Walker reimagines a genre of Medieval and Renaissance altarpieces in which a central panel is flanked on either side by portraits of the work’s commissioners, who were often powerful and influential patrons of the arts. Unlike their historical predecessors, the couple in Walker’s three-part composition appear to be African American and are visually similar to the black residents of the antebellum South that populate the artist’s large-scale installations, films, and other works on paper. Here, the central image is also unusual: as opposed to the traditional gathering of saints or a biblical scene, it depicts the raising of a colossal statue of a naked black woman by the sea. The triptych’s title, Resurrection Story with Patrons, further confounds the narrative: Is the figure here one that has fallen and is being resurrected in front of our eyes, or is it being newly erected, only to require resurrection in the future? Ultimately, the many ambiguities and contradictions inherent in this work convey the complex lived reality and cultural representation of African Americans today, “alternating between captor and redeemer,” as Walker has said in her own words.

Other Works by This Artist