Red Fruit from the collection of Miriam McClung

Hi resolution image.

Red Fruit, c. 1963

Miriam McClung

Oil on Board

16 x 20 x 0.25 in

Inv: 56-MM

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[Note: We are unsure of the exact year of the piece. Likely between 1963-1968.]

This piece reflects the racial complexities of the South, in particular, Miriam's hometown of Birmingham, Alabama.

Miriam left Birmingham to attend the University of Alabama to pursue a major in fine art in 1953. When she graduated in 1956, she returned to Birmingham briefly to work and then to study at the Art Students League of New York from 1958 to 1959.

By the early 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement and protests against racial inequality in the South were intensifying, and Birmingham would become the focal point for the entire movement and nation. This is the context in which Miriam was creating this work, as she sought to understand the social issues surrounding her.

At first, the piece appears to simply be red fruit on a table. And there is red fruit, but looking closer one can see a man with white hair, a blue shirt, and a folded arm on the table, almost offering a piece of fruit.

In the background, along the middle of the painting is the outline of the City of Birmingham, with a divide cutting between the man on one side of the road and the green, lush land on the other. This divide is a reflection of the Red Mountain Expressway, which was built between 1962-1969 that connecting segregated, wealthy White over the mountain suburbs with mostly Black areas of downtown Birmingham.

The sky in the background is red, possibly reflecting the violent suppression of Civil Rights protestors in Birmingham during this period, and it fades to grey over the man's shoulders.

The fruit cannot be consumed by the person in the picture, and their offering to others is not received.

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