On View
Not on viewObject number1977/8.24
Swing Low Sweet Chariot
Artist
John McCrady
(American, 1911-1968)
Date1941
Mediumlithograph
Dimensionsimage: 10 15/16 × 14 7/8 in. (27.8 × 37.8 cm)
sheet: 13 1/8 × 17 3/8 in. (33.3 × 44.1 cm)
mat: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
sheet: 13 1/8 × 17 3/8 in. (33.3 × 44.1 cm)
mat: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Mrs. Cornelia Robinson
Exhibition History"36 Regionalist prints from the KIA," Dennos Museum Center (Sept. 8 - Nov. 24, 1996), Ella Sharp Museum, Jackson, MI (May 17 - July 13, 1997), Midland Center for the Arts (Aug. 2 - Sept. 21, 1997).Label TextBorn in Mississippi and resident in New Orleans for much of his life, McCrady devoted his life to recording and interpreting the subject matter of the South. In Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, McCrady interprets the old spiritual of the same name. The scene describes the death of a resident of a small sharecropper cabin. Mourning family members gather around the bed, seen through the open doorway, while the heavenly chariot descends over the cabin itself. An angel escorts the spirit of the departed up to the chariot, seen only by the dogs that stand as silent witnesses as lower left.
