Object Details
- Artist
- Diane Arbus, 14 Jul 1923 - 26 Jul 1971
- Neil Selkirk, born 1947
- Sitter
- Coretta Scott King, 27 Apr 1927 - 30 Jan 2006
- Exhibition Label
- Diane Arbus's portrait of Coretta Scott King pictures her standing on the front lawn of her Atlanta home only a short time after the assassination of her husband, Martin Luther King Jr., in April 1968. While grieving his loss, Mrs. King continued to be involved in the campaigns that had so profoundly shaped their relationship. Two months after the assassination, she delivered the Class Day address at Harvard's graduation and used the occasion to speak out against the conflict in Vietnam, "a war that outrages our moral sensibility and insults our political intelligence." Several days later, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial-where her husband had spoken so eloquently five years earlier-she called on women to "lead the way of non-violence as a way of life." By the year's end, she had also announced the initiative to develop a memorial in Atlanta to honor her late husband.
- Credit Line
- National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
- 1968 (printed later)
- Object number
- NPG.2006.19
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Copyright
- © The Estate of Diane Arbus © Neil Selkirk
- Type
- Photograph
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- Image: 36.3 x 36.2cm (14 5/16 x 14 1/4")
- Sheet: 50.4 x 40.7cm (19 13/16 x 16")
- Mat: 71.1 x 55.9cm (28 x 22")
- Place
- United States\Georgia\Fulton\Atlanta
- See more items in
- National Portrait Gallery Collection
- National Portrait Gallery
- Topic
- Exterior
- Coretta Scott King: Female
- Coretta Scott King: Society and Social Change\Reformer\Activist\Civil rights activist
- Coretta Scott King: Congressional Gold Medal
- Portrait
- Record ID
- npg_NPG.2006.19
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/sm42b6f436b-fe8b-4158-901b-bd29cfc33d1f
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