Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
1904-1996
Painted cast plaster
15 in x 9 1/2 in x 8 in
1967
Label:
As a young prominent Jewish artist in 1930s Germany, Weill came to America fleeing Nazi persecution. She soon found common cause with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Dr. King first learned of Weill in 1966 through her sculpture Mothers of Birmingham, a heart-wrenching homage to the anguished mothers of four children killed in the racially-motivated bombing of a Black church. He was so moved by the work that he agreed to sit for photographs by the artist. Completed in the wake of his assassination, Weill called this portrait “a study in the power of peace,” embodying the hope, strength, and dignity of Dr. King’s legacy.
As Exhibited In:
Face to Face: 200 Years of Portraiture from the Johnson Collection, TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, SC, October 19, 2022–January 7, 2023
We Speak of Exchange: Immigrant and Expatriate Artists in the Johnson Collection, TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, SC, September 15–December 10, 2021
Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century, Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC, February 26–July 18, 2010