Boone Hall Plantation is an oil painting created by Edwin Harleston in 1925. Edwin Harleston was an African American painter who was best known for his portraits. The title of the painting is misleading. The painting is titled Boone Hall Plantation (which is located in Mount Pleasant, SC), but it is actually a depiction of Oak Lawn, a plantation near Parker’s Ferry.

          The painting shows a beautiful plantation style home. When you look at the painting, it is as if you are looking through the artist’s eyes. You can see that Harleston was behind a fence, in a shaded and dark area while painting. As you look past the fence, you can see thick trees on both sides of a path. In the distance, at the end of the path, is the plantation building. It is white with a reddish color roofing. Harleston did a great job of showing the light shine on the ground and the house itself. It is ironic that Harleston made the painting lighten up in color closest to the plantation home. He portrayed a place with such a dark and racist past as beautiful. When spectators acknowledge that Edwin Harleston was an African American man, it makes them wonder if it was painful for him to paint a plantation beautifully, when it had ties to slavery.

          Right beside Boone Hall Plantation is one of the portraits he created, Portrait of Aaron Douglas. I had the chance to look at both of them and noticed something unique. Many artists make sure to sign their works in a way that stands out and can be differentiated from the painting. This was not the case for Harleston’s signatures. His signatures were done in a color similar to the background, so they were hard to find.

          While Harleston, a Charleston native, created beautiful work during the Charleston Renaissance, he is often excluded from being named as an artist of that time because of his skin color. In order to secure commissions, Edwin Harleston had to conform to attract white customers. He specialized in portraits of African Americans but would paint plantation scenes, which were popular among white artists. Edwin Harleston would have to enter plantation areas secretly because of the Jim Crow Laws. While white artists could enter wherever they wanted, African American artists did not have that freedom. 

          Someone would come to the Gibbes Museum to see Harleston’s work because many of his works have received national attention. While the Charleston art community shunned Edwin Harleston, he received numerous exhibition opportunities and commissions from across the country. It is amazing that Harleston was able to create both beautiful paintings of people and of places.

          We can gain an understanding of how African American artists had to sometimes change their artistic styles to sell paintings to white customers. Also, I learned that African Americans are often met with constant reminders of the oppression they have faced. Last year, a statue of John C. Calhhoun was taken down. African Americans were quoted in the newspaper explaining that Calhoun would no longer be standing tall and looking down on them anymore. I wonder if seeing the Calhoun statue was as hard as Harleston painting plantations in a beautiful light.

Sources

https://scafricanamerican.com/honorees/edwin-a-harleston/

https://www.gibbesmuseum.org/news/artist-spotlight-edwin-harleston-american-1882-1931/

https://thejohnsoncollection.org/edwin-harleston/