Bisa Butler brings a powerful portrait from American history to a new limited-edition print, created as a fundraising edition for Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery and National Museum of African American History and Culture
I Go To Prepare A Place For You, created in 2021, is a quilted and appliquéd textile portrait based on a 19th-century photograph of abolitionist Harriet Tubman by Benjamin F. Powelson. In the artwork, Butler uses a palette of blues to reflect Tubman's life in hiding as she carried out her work as a social activist, set against passages of red that speak to her strength, determination and unwavering will to be free. As Tubman herself once said: "There are two things I've got a right to, and these are Death, or Liberty – one or the other I mean to have."
Butler's original work is held in the collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington DC. This edition brings the artwork into print for the first time, with proceeds supporting Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery and National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Unframed: 60cm (H) × 43.3cm (W)
Archival pigment print with silkscreen gloss varnish details on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Bright White 310 gsm paper.
Signed by the artist. Individually numbered.
Arrives with a certificate of authenticity.
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