Getty Museum

Black and Tanned Your Whipped Wind of Change Howled Low Blowing Itself - Ha - Smack into the Middle of Duke Ellington's Orchestra Billie Heard It Too & Cried Strange Fruit Tears

Date

1995

Medium

Chromogenic print with etched glass

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

A composition centered on an enlarged, red-tinted reproduction of an 1863 image of a Black man named Gordon, who escaped enslavement. He faces away from the camera, revealing deep scars across his bare back from repeated whippings. Text is engraved on the frame glass in front of the image, reading: “Black and Tanned/ Your Whipped Wind/ of Change Howled Low Blowing Itself - Ha - Smack into the Middle of Duke Ellington’s Orchestra Billie Heard It Too & Cried Strange Fruit Tears.”

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