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Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

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Glenn Ligon

Untitled, from the portfolio Runaways

1993

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Glenn Ligon’s work is often autobiographical, exploring how his own identity as a black man intersects with and is shaped by the sociopolitical circumstances and events of American culture, past and present. His print portfolio Runaways mimics the rhetoric and typography of nineteenth-century advertisements for runaway slaves in Southern newspapers, inserting various contemporary descriptions of himself in place of the runaway. The descriptions were drawn from ten of his friends, each of whom was asked to provide a verbal account of Ligon as though reporting his disappearance to the police. The texts that emerged from this process combine the casual language of physical appearance with the blunt reality of slavery. [Permanent collection label, 2017]

  • Artist Glenn Ligon (American, b. 1960)
  • Title Untitled, from the portfolio Runaways
  • Date 1993
  • Medium Lithograph
  • Edition description 30/45
  • Dimensions sheet | 16 x 12 in.
  • Part of Runaways
  • Credit line University purchase, Nathan Cummings Fund and Art Acquisition Fund, 1996
  • Object number WU 1996.01.04

(Un)masking Health: Counter Perspectives
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/19/2022 - 07/25/2022

Truths and Reckonings: The Art of Transformative Racial Justice
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 02/07/2020 - 04/18/2020

2/28/1996
Schmidt Contemporary Art

Inscription LR: “Glenn Ligon ‘93”

Ran away, Glenn / Ligon. He’s a shortish broad-shouldered / black man, pretty dark-skinned, with / glasses. Kind of stocky, tends to look down / and turn in when he walks. Real short / hair, almost none. Clothes non-descript, / something button-down and plaid, maybe, / and shorts and sandals. Wide lower face / and narrow upper face. Nice teeth.

This artwork record may be incomplete or need refinement. Our staff actively researches the collection and revises records when new information is available. If you have questions or comments about this record, please contact us.

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