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拍品专文
In an accompanying note, Winfred Rembert remembers, “This is Jeff's Pool Hall, I use to hang out there, I learned a lot about the game from Jeff, I use to rock the bottle, and I slept in the back. W.R.”
When looking at Winfred Rembert’s vibrant Jeff’s Pool Hall, one can practically hear the sound of cue sticks striking billiard balls, as friendly competitive chatter and laughter fills the air of the room. The scene of an entertaining pastime is in stark contrast to Rembert’s well-known compositions of incarcerated Black men, such lot 37 in this sale. Born in Cuthbert, Georgia in 1945, Winfred Rembert did not start creating art until the age of 51, after two times in jail and a near-lynching. Rembert was born into the Jim Crow South where he grew up picking cotton and peanuts. As a teenager, he was involved in the Civil Rights Movement. He was first arrested after one demonstration which ended with him running from armed policemen and stealing an unlocked car as a means to get away. He then escaped jail, was caught once more and hung by a mob of white men, but not killed. He spent the next seven years on a chain gang. Later in life after his release from jail, he married his wife Patsy Gammage and settled in New Haven, Connecticut. Patsy encouraged Rembert to use his leather-tooling skills that he learned while in prison to create pictures. His autobiographical work ranges from depictions of joyful memories of his childhood to the realities of the Jim Crow South and incarceration as a Black man.
With Jeff’s Pool Hall, Rembert recalls a place of importance that served as a space of leisure, but was also where Rembert was introduced to the Civil Rights Movement. Rembert was first brought to Jeff’s by a friend who introduced him to the owner and namesake of the establishment, “Jeff fell in love with me on the spot – I had that knack of people liking me. He said, ‘Listen, you want a job?’” (Winfred Rembert, Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South (New York, 2021), p. 43). Rembert was given the responsibility of running the poolroom, racking the billiard balls and collecting money from patrons. In 1961 or 1962, as he remembers, a group of Black men met at the pool hall, “talking about civil rights. I never heard people talking about civil rights before.” Jeff’s became “the meeting place for talking about ideas, business, and civil rights” (Rembert, op. cit., p. 91). Jeff’s Pool Hall is a densely packed composition, full of color and a buzzing energy. It is a place where life was enjoyed and where activists congregated in their fight for the protection and expansion of freedom.
When looking at Winfred Rembert’s vibrant Jeff’s Pool Hall, one can practically hear the sound of cue sticks striking billiard balls, as friendly competitive chatter and laughter fills the air of the room. The scene of an entertaining pastime is in stark contrast to Rembert’s well-known compositions of incarcerated Black men, such lot 37 in this sale. Born in Cuthbert, Georgia in 1945, Winfred Rembert did not start creating art until the age of 51, after two times in jail and a near-lynching. Rembert was born into the Jim Crow South where he grew up picking cotton and peanuts. As a teenager, he was involved in the Civil Rights Movement. He was first arrested after one demonstration which ended with him running from armed policemen and stealing an unlocked car as a means to get away. He then escaped jail, was caught once more and hung by a mob of white men, but not killed. He spent the next seven years on a chain gang. Later in life after his release from jail, he married his wife Patsy Gammage and settled in New Haven, Connecticut. Patsy encouraged Rembert to use his leather-tooling skills that he learned while in prison to create pictures. His autobiographical work ranges from depictions of joyful memories of his childhood to the realities of the Jim Crow South and incarceration as a Black man.
With Jeff’s Pool Hall, Rembert recalls a place of importance that served as a space of leisure, but was also where Rembert was introduced to the Civil Rights Movement. Rembert was first brought to Jeff’s by a friend who introduced him to the owner and namesake of the establishment, “Jeff fell in love with me on the spot – I had that knack of people liking me. He said, ‘Listen, you want a job?’” (Winfred Rembert, Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South (New York, 2021), p. 43). Rembert was given the responsibility of running the poolroom, racking the billiard balls and collecting money from patrons. In 1961 or 1962, as he remembers, a group of Black men met at the pool hall, “talking about civil rights. I never heard people talking about civil rights before.” Jeff’s became “the meeting place for talking about ideas, business, and civil rights” (Rembert, op. cit., p. 91). Jeff’s Pool Hall is a densely packed composition, full of color and a buzzing energy. It is a place where life was enjoyed and where activists congregated in their fight for the protection and expansion of freedom.