Baby sleeping on an African American quilt
by Mabel Dwight (1870-1955)
ca. 1937
Oil on Masonite
Dimensions TBD
Sometimes the story of a painting is as interesting as the work of art itself, and we feel this way about this beautiful little piece. Below is information provided to us by the previous owner, Mr. Doug Wood. Just imagine what it would have been like if the painting were lost to a storm!
“In 1991, I obtained this oil painting while residing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The lady I bought it from told me it was given as a gift from the owners of the Uncle Sam Plantation to their caretaker. The Uncle Sam Plantation, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans no longer exists. I was serving the Oklahoma Street Projects in downtown Baton Rouge at the time and the little boy reminded me of a child there named Jaylen. After spending several years in El Salvador during the mid-1990s, I returned to the US and now reside in Trussville, Alabama, a suburb just northeast of Birmingham, AL. In each of these places I (and now my wife and children) have served and continue to serve inner city communities. Our home has art work of other children from Guatemala and El Salvador and reminds us of the beautiful children we serve.
In the early morning hours of 23 January 2012, a tornado ripped through our community and neighborhood. My family was unharmed but we had extensive restoration work done on our home. A 2” x 4” piece of wood was stuck through one of our front windows and the jagged end embedded into the door of a closet. The picture remained hanging on the wall scant inches from the debris. The painting receiving some slight damage at the time (no rips or tears) with some of the blue paint scraped off the child’s pajamas. After our home was restored, I hung the painting on an inner wall.
Throughout the years I have typed in queries for Ruth Starr Rose online and found there was scant information available. At one time I found the telephone number for her granddaughter and talked to her. She told me many of the wonderful things about her grandmother and her legacy. Last night, I typed “Ruth Starr Rose” into the Google search engine and I found all kinds of wonderful information about our painter that was not there just one year ago. My wife, Sonia, and I were elated that Ruth had her own exhibition once again after so many decades. It was a thrill to see so many works we had never seen before. I love the painting of the little boy on the stairs. I can imagine Ruth making her little model more comfortable with a pillow since he was posed on those blue wooden stairs.”