Table Scenes in Black Art

Horace Pippin's Giving Thanks (1942)

In my upcoming book on Ta-Nehisi Coates's run on Black Panther, I briefly discuss the recurrence of table scenes in his book -- where groups of Black people gather around tables and consider weighty issues. Recently, art collector Cleo Thomas, Jr. sent a group of us an image of Horace Pippin's Giving Thanks (1942), which reminded me of those scenes from Coates's Black Panther. 

[Related: Table Scenes in Black Panther]

Here's a roundup with links of some table scenes in the work of Black artists and some white artists featuring Black subjects. Thanks to Thomas for providing a heads up on some of these. 

Black Artists

• Henry Ossawa Tanner — The Thankful Poor (1894) 

• Hale Woodruff — The Card Players -- black and white -- (1930)

• Hale Woodruff — The Card Players -- color -- (1930)

• Lois Mailou Jones — from The Picture-Poetry Book (1935)

• Archibald Motley — The Liar (1936) 

• Archibald Motley — The Picnic (1936) 

• Charles White — Card Players (1939)

• Jacob Lawrence — Migration Series #10 (1940-1941) 

• Jacob Lawrence — Migration Series #30 (1940-1941) 

• Jacob Lawrence — Migration Series #49 (1940-1941) 

• Horace Pippin — Giving Thanks (1942) 

• Jacob Lawrence — The Card Game (1953) 

• Hale Woodruff — Card Players (1958)

• Alvin Demar Loving  — The Card Players (1959) 

• Romare Bearden — The Family (Around the Dining Table) (1975) 

• Varnette Honeywood — Old Fashioned Dinner Party (1986) 

• Margo Humphrey — The Last Bar-B-Que (1987)  

• Faith Ringgold —  Dinner at Gertrude Stein's (1991) 

• Annie Lee — Six No UpTown (1993)

• Annie Lee — Al Ain't Here 

• Kerry James Marshall — Untitled (Club Couple) (2014)

White artists and photographers  

• Richard Norris Brooke — A Pastoral Visit (1881)

• Frances Benjamin Johnston — A Hampton graduate at home (1899-1900)

• Frank Hartley Anderson — Church Supper (1936)

Related: 

• Table Scenes in Black Panther