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Lot Essay
Simone Leigh’s 109 (Face Jug Series) eruditely combines art, history, and the cultural legacy of ordinary objects in a form that has come to characterize her celebrated career. A rich, blue pigmented face emerges from a slender base, her facial features hidden under a shock of curly hair. From the top of her head an opening appears, immediately turning this object from something decorative into something that is functional too. The bust, which has recalls the sculptural portraits of Black artist Ruth Inge Hardison, functions as both art and receptacle; it is simultaneously celestial and human as it elevates the creativity and resilience of Black people.
With these forms, Leigh tackles the complicated racial history of these objects head on. Face jugs emerged in the American South in the mid-1800s, largely considered to be the work of a small group of free and enslaved Black potters/artists in South Carolina’s Edgefield District. Their work was skilled and expressive, and was later copied by white potters toward the end of the nineteenth century as the demand for stoneware grew. In keeping with this history, Leigh argues that sculptures like 109 (Face Jug) “fuse the [B]lack body with a tool” (S. Leigh, quoted in R. Pogrebin and H.M. Sheets, “An Artist Ascendant: Simone Leigh Moves Into the Mainstream,” The New York Times, August 29, 2018).
Exemplifying her research-driven practice, Leigh found a famous 1882 photograph in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York that uses a face jug as a set piece in a racist portrait of an unnamed Black woman (whom Leigh has pointedly referred to as Anonymous). Leigh decided to pay homage to the face jug as a product of Black creativity and refute the stereotypes trafficked by nineteenth-century photography. The prominent Black poet Robin Coste Lewis writes of the same photograph, “Vases and I are not permitted/To dally. If I were a name,/It would be Wall Paper. My hair is made of/A million breathing paisleys” (R.C. Lewis, “Poems from Sanctuary,” Transition, No. 109, 2012, p. 35). Likewise, Leigh turns her figure’s halo-like hair into shapes that gives form to the Black women who have been erased from history.
Ms. Leigh went to Maine for its wood salt kilns. The sculptures are fired as many as five times, a process that requires at least nine people to monitor the process on four-hour shifts. ‘There’s an unpredictability to the result,’ Ms. Leigh said.(R. Pogrebin and H.M. Sheets, “An Artist Ascendant: Simone Leigh Moves Into the Mainstream,” The New York Times, August 29, 2018).
These face jugs have recently attracted renewed scholarly interest, featuring in “Hear Me Know: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina,” a critically acclaimed exhibition organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. A work related the present example, 108 (Face Jug Series), features prominently in the exhibition. The Edgefield potters represent creativity in the face of cruelty. Differentiating artistic labor from the forced labor of slavery, “[The Edgefield potters] could celebrate the creations co-opted by their owners, and they could also make things for themselves” (V. Brown, “The Art of Enslaved Labor,” in Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2022, p. 23). Stoneware was and remains very labor intensive: “Mining and preparing clay; throwing vast quantities of ware; decorating and glazing vessels; gathering fuel for and overseeing firing; building, loading, and unloading kilns; and transporting wares to markets across the region” (Adrienne Spinozzi, “Preface,” ibid). Leigh’s oeuvre, exemplified by 109 (Face Jug Series), pays homage to this incredible artistic output. The New York Times recounts, “Ms. Leigh went to Maine for its wood salt kilns. The sculptures are fired as many as five times, a process that requires at least nine people to monitor the process on four-hour shifts. ‘There’s an unpredictability to the result,’ Ms. Leigh said” (R. Pogrebin and H.M. Sheets, “An Artist Ascendant: Simone Leigh Moves Into the Mainstream,” The New York Times, August 29, 2018).
109 (Face Jug Series) is an object of both beauty and work; it is the result of time-intensive study, alongside the multi-step salt-firing technique. Leigh always journey’s back into history, with the tender hands of a sculptor, in order to unearth the visionary Black artists whose voices were silenced by racism. She incorporates their contributions into her own sculptures, and, in so doing, has created a more equitable vision of art history.
With these forms, Leigh tackles the complicated racial history of these objects head on. Face jugs emerged in the American South in the mid-1800s, largely considered to be the work of a small group of free and enslaved Black potters/artists in South Carolina’s Edgefield District. Their work was skilled and expressive, and was later copied by white potters toward the end of the nineteenth century as the demand for stoneware grew. In keeping with this history, Leigh argues that sculptures like 109 (Face Jug) “fuse the [B]lack body with a tool” (S. Leigh, quoted in R. Pogrebin and H.M. Sheets, “An Artist Ascendant: Simone Leigh Moves Into the Mainstream,” The New York Times, August 29, 2018).
Exemplifying her research-driven practice, Leigh found a famous 1882 photograph in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York that uses a face jug as a set piece in a racist portrait of an unnamed Black woman (whom Leigh has pointedly referred to as Anonymous). Leigh decided to pay homage to the face jug as a product of Black creativity and refute the stereotypes trafficked by nineteenth-century photography. The prominent Black poet Robin Coste Lewis writes of the same photograph, “Vases and I are not permitted/To dally. If I were a name,/It would be Wall Paper. My hair is made of/A million breathing paisleys” (R.C. Lewis, “Poems from Sanctuary,” Transition, No. 109, 2012, p. 35). Likewise, Leigh turns her figure’s halo-like hair into shapes that gives form to the Black women who have been erased from history.
Ms. Leigh went to Maine for its wood salt kilns. The sculptures are fired as many as five times, a process that requires at least nine people to monitor the process on four-hour shifts. ‘There’s an unpredictability to the result,’ Ms. Leigh said.(R. Pogrebin and H.M. Sheets, “An Artist Ascendant: Simone Leigh Moves Into the Mainstream,” The New York Times, August 29, 2018).
These face jugs have recently attracted renewed scholarly interest, featuring in “Hear Me Know: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina,” a critically acclaimed exhibition organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. A work related the present example, 108 (Face Jug Series), features prominently in the exhibition. The Edgefield potters represent creativity in the face of cruelty. Differentiating artistic labor from the forced labor of slavery, “[The Edgefield potters] could celebrate the creations co-opted by their owners, and they could also make things for themselves” (V. Brown, “The Art of Enslaved Labor,” in Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2022, p. 23). Stoneware was and remains very labor intensive: “Mining and preparing clay; throwing vast quantities of ware; decorating and glazing vessels; gathering fuel for and overseeing firing; building, loading, and unloading kilns; and transporting wares to markets across the region” (Adrienne Spinozzi, “Preface,” ibid). Leigh’s oeuvre, exemplified by 109 (Face Jug Series), pays homage to this incredible artistic output. The New York Times recounts, “Ms. Leigh went to Maine for its wood salt kilns. The sculptures are fired as many as five times, a process that requires at least nine people to monitor the process on four-hour shifts. ‘There’s an unpredictability to the result,’ Ms. Leigh said” (R. Pogrebin and H.M. Sheets, “An Artist Ascendant: Simone Leigh Moves Into the Mainstream,” The New York Times, August 29, 2018).
109 (Face Jug Series) is an object of both beauty and work; it is the result of time-intensive study, alongside the multi-step salt-firing technique. Leigh always journey’s back into history, with the tender hands of a sculptor, in order to unearth the visionary Black artists whose voices were silenced by racism. She incorporates their contributions into her own sculptures, and, in so doing, has created a more equitable vision of art history.