Reapers

About the Work

From the Artist

I'm trying to contribute to the development of a kind of equality, visually...I'd like to contribute to heaven on earth, which I don't believe we're ever going to get. But these are the things. And I don't want to sacrifice the artistic mirrors of my work in the process. So that is my problem. I want to show the Negro as the man he is. I would like to depict man on a higher level than animals. I want them all to come together. It's pretty nearly impossible but that's what I'm trying to do.
_{—Benny Andrews, 1968 (Fraustino, Lisa Rowe. The Hickory Chair. Illustrated by Benny Andrews. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2001)}

Agriculture's economic difficulties are a common theme among African American artists from the South. Reapers, 1994, is an offset lithograph and screenprint with collage by Benny Andrews, a painter committed to social narrative art. This print is inspired by his memories of the rural Georgia landscape. Edwin Arocho and Danny Ford printed the screenprint and attached a linen collage, while Robert Franklin printed the offset. Andrews has an exceptional drawing talent and style that emphasizes line and avoids form modeling. While best known for his paintings, Andrews is also a skilled draftsman and creative printer who has worked in a variety of mediums. In 1995, Brandywine hosted his first all-print solo exhibition.
_{—Adapted from  "Fresh, Human and Personal: Signature of Brandywine Workshop," Three Decades of American Printmaking: The Brandywine Workshop Collection (Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills Press, 2004)}