Slum Dweller

Hale Woodruff was a prominent artist in the mid-twentieth century who promoted the work of many young Black artists during his tenure teaching at Atlanta University and New York University. Though best known for his murals and, later, his abstract paintings, “Slum Dweller” is a print from Woodruff’s influential years living and teaching in Atlanta. In the late 1930s, he created a series of linoleum cuts that represented life in Atlanta and rural Georgia that addressed the social inequalities that African Americans faced. “Slum Dweller” represents a woman returning home, possibly from church, to a run-down neighborhood. Woodruff depicts her wearing her Sunday best and high heels, focusing on one positive way that Black Americans persevered in the face of poverty and racial discrimination. Other impressions of this print that indicate slight variations in the matrix and its inking are titled “Coming Home,” “Returning Home,” “View of Atlanta,” and “Shantytown,” suggesting that multiple editions were published during Woodruff’s lifetime.