Tools of the Trade: The William Howard Writing Desk from Kirkwood Plantation

Saturday, May 19, 2012—Sunday, July 29, 2012
Cargill Gallery 103
Free Exhibition

This writing desk, designed and created by William Howard, is a newly acquired object for the MIA's collection of African American and American Folk Art. Howard lived and worked at Kirkwood Plantation in Madison County, Mississippi, first as an enslaved man, then as a free man after the American Civil War. A skilled and no doubt valued carpenter and builder, Howard constructed the desk, resembling a perfectly proportioned Greek temple, from yellow pine, cotton crates, and "Bull Durham" tobacco boxes (visible from the interior, back, and bottom). Most striking is the pictographic assemblage of more than 70 hand-carved and applied weapons, tools, eating utensils, vessels, and trade symbols.