Souls Grown Deep Like the Rivers review: a display of ‘redemptive’ works
Exhibits on show at the RA speak loudly of ‘art’s role in collective survival’

It took both ingenuity and courage for African Americans to become artists in the Jim Crow-era Deep South, said Maya Jaggi in the FT. The region’s black inhabitants typically received no education beyond primary level and were limited to low-paid jobs, making materials like oil paint all but unaffordable. Since museums and galleries were “barred” to them, they had no conventional spaces in which to exhibit. Such was the level of prejudice, the very act of making art as an African American, let alone calling oneself an artist, might inspire “violent reprisals”.
Nevertheless, as this new exhibition attests, some brave souls persevered to create a “powerful” artistic tradition. Titled after a line from a poem by Langston Hughes, Souls Grown Deep Like the Rivers explores the work of 34 black artists born in the Deep South between 1887 and 1965, none of whom had any formal training. The show features 64 works, many of which were created with whatever materials came to hand – from twigs and scrap metal to coffee grounds and even mud. The result is a display of “reclamatory and redemptive” exhibits that speaks loudly of “art’s role in collective survival”.
There are no “banal formal constraints” here, said Laura Cumming in The Observer. “Carvings become installations”; “sculptures become paintings that burst into three dimensions”. By and large, “the material is the message”: Joe Minter’s sculpture of Christ and the two thieves on Calvary is made from “industrial steel brackets” with “garage nails driven straight through them to welded iron crosses”. Bessie Harvey turns a “single tree root” into “a vision of black faces as they might look to white oppressors”. We see a map of Africa made in 1960s Alabama, painted from “blackberry juice and grass stain”. What a shame, then, that this magnificent display is “crammed” into three small galleries.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Not everything here is “great art”, said Waldemar Januszczak in The Sunday Times. Indeed, some of it – such as a 1994 sculpture by Thornton Dial made of “wood, old tyres, bits of wire, and plastic air-fresheners” – is “clumsy”. But to condemn this show on those terms is to miss the point: this is art that testifies to ingenuity in the face of grinding poverty and extreme prejudice. Dial’s King of the Jungle, for instance, is a lion “bashed out and welded from prison chains”. Loretta Pettway, a member of the Gee’s Bend collective of quiltmakers in Alabama, was married to a spendthrift “ne’er-do-well”, and devoted herself to knitting brilliantly patterned quilts for her children, using “worn-out fragments of family clothes”. An example here, from 1960, is unbearably poignant. Many of these artworks remind us that “you can take away almost everything from a human being – their freedom, their dignity, their happiness – but you can’t take away their creativity”.
Royal Academy of Arts, London W1 (020-7300 8090, royalacademy.org.uk). Until 18 June
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Gavin Newsom mulls California redistricting to counter Texas gerrymandering
TALKING POINTS A controversial plan has become a major flashpoint among Democrats struggling for traction in the Trump era
-
6 perfect gifts for travel lovers
The Week Recommends The best trip is the one that lives on and on
-
How can you get the maximum Social Security retirement benefit?
the explainer These steps can help boost the Social Security amount you receive
-
6 peaceful homes near small towns
Feature Featuring doors with local topographical maps in Oregon and a 1850s homestead-turned-house in Vermont
-
Too Much: London-set romantic comedy from Lena Dunham
The Week Recommends Megan Stalter stars as a 'neurotic' New Yorker who falls in love with a Brit
-
Apocalypse in the Tropics: a 'troubling' portrait of modern Brazil
The Week Recommends Petra Costa's sobering documentary examines the rise of right-wing evangelical Christianity in Brazilian politics
-
Murderland: a 'hauntingly compulsive' book
The Week Recommends Caroline Fraser sets out a 'compelling theory' that toxins were to blame for the 1970s serial killer epidemic
-
The 2025 James Beard Award winners
Feature Featuring a casually elegant restaurant, recipes nearly lost to war, and more
-
Film reviews: Superman and Sorry, Baby
Feature A hero returns, in surprising earnest, and a woman navigates life after a tragedy
-
Music reviews: Lorde, Barbra Streisand, and Karol G
Feature "Virgin," "The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two," and "Tropicoqueta"
-
Laura Lippman's 6 favorite books for those who crave a high-stakes adventure
Feature The Grand Master recommends works by E.L. Konigsburg, Charles Portis, and more