After living as an expatriate in Paris for many years, Woodruff accepted a position as chair of the newly established art department at Atlanta University in Georgia. There, he adopted a realistic style to highlight the harsh living conditions that his fellow African Americans endured in the post-slavery United States. With funds from the Works Progress Administration, he produced a series of woodcuts that exposed the South’s “peculiar rundown landscapes [and] its social and economic problems.” In the same scenes, he also demonstrated the resilience of the people who lived there, as they worked, rested, and gathered as a community.
Gallery label from 2022
