"The cover of this edition features a poignant watercolor portrait, Woman in Blue, Waiting, by a Philadelphia artist whose work has been regrettably overlooked in the past but is now being rediscovered as new studies and exhibitions, as well as a preservation effort to save his home, have emerged in recent years. Printmaker and painter Dox Thrash sought to document the African American experience in his art and became a major figure in Philadelphia’s Black cultural awakening centered in the Sharswood neighborhood in the mid-20th century. Educated at the Art Institute of Chicago after moving north from Georgia during the Great Migration, he arrived in Philadelphia in the 1920s and later honed his craft in the Federal Art Project’s Fine Print Workshop, where he and his associates pioneered the revolutionary carborundum mezzotint printing process. In this issue’s cover story [“Dox Thrash and the ‘Poetry of the Artist’s Own People’“], art historian Matthew F. Singer examines the power of the artist’s vision through a survey of Thrash’s vivid depictions of Black life during the diaspora and discusses the artist’s legacy today."
Kyle R. Weaver - Editor
click the link to view the full article by Matthew F. Singer
