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Just Business

Just Business

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Walter Ellison

Just Business depicts a church interior in Bronzeville, Chicago’s historically Black, south side neighborhood. In the background, a pastor gives a sermon to women wearing hats and older gentlemen at the front of the church. In the left foreground of the painting, however, a group of men place Policy bets at a window at the back of the congregation hall. Policy was a lottery game that was widespread in Bronzeville during the 1930s and 1940s. Chicago politicians who solicited the support of African American voters protected the game even though it was illegal. Policy was integral to the economy of Bronzeville specifically and Chicago broadly.
Artist
Walter Ellison
(American, 1899 – 1977)
Title
Just Business
Date
1940
Medium
Oil on paperboard
Dimensions
16 1/2 x 22 1/2 in. overall
Credit
Shirley G. Epstein Endowment Fund and William R. Mitchell Endowment Fund purchase
Accession No.
2024.20
Classification
Paintings
Geography
United States

Related

Private collection (Chicago, IL); 6 December 2014, sold by Treadway Toomey Galleries (Oak Park, IL) "Important Collection of Robert and Elaine Dillof and 20th Century Art and Design Auction" [lot 00506]; 16 May 2020, sold by Black Art Auction (Indianapolis, IN) "The Inaugural Black Art Auction" [lot 56] to The John and Susan Horseman Foundation for American Art (St. Louis, MO); 2022, deaccessioned by The John and Susan Horseman Foundation for American Art (St. Louis, MO); November 2024, sold by Black Art Auction (St. Louis, MO) to the Chazen Museum of Art (Madison, WI)

  • Jenkins, Earnestine Lovelle. "Black Artists in America: From the Great Depression to Civil Rights." New Haven: Dixon Gallery and Gardens in association with Yale University Press, 2021. pp. 17-18, cat. no. 14

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