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Poto-Poto School Painting

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Keywords
Local ID
20231003_poto_poto_school_paintings_22
Collections
Rhodes College Collection of Artwork and Artifacts
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20231003_poto_poto_school_paintings_22.jpg
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http://hdl.handle.net/10267/36476
Abstract
Two gouache paintings on white paper set in red mat. The top painting depicts one figure in an orange skirt. The bottom depicts two figures on either side of a tree. Both are signed in the bottom right corners.
Description
Reverend William Pruitt (1911-1999), who served as a Presbyterian missionary in the Belgian Congo from the 1930s to 1978, collected a group of 37 paintings from artists at the Poto-Poto School, a small art school in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo that is still in operation today. In 1998, the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. began an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse made by several children of missionaries from the time Pruitt was a missionary in the Congo. This collection of paintings was found in the Rhodes College collection in the summer of 2023. The paintings were digitized and cataloged in the Visual Resources Center during fall 2023. Learn more about the William Pruitt investigation here: https://www.pcusa.org/news/2010/12/16/pcusa-named-lawsuit-alleged-victim-sexual-abuse-mi/ https://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/iarp/pdfs/iarp_final_report.pdf