Legacies (Memphis, Tennessee)

Legacies (Memphis, Tennessee)

Subject (Topic)
Chickasaw Nation
Enslaved persons--Emancipation
Freed persons
Public art
Public sculpture
Tennessee--Memphis

Subject (Object Type)
Commemorative sculpture

Legacies depicts a Chickasaw woman wrapped in a cloak. The artist Vinnie Bagwell has embellished the hem of the cloak with bas-relief, illuminating the complex history of present-day Memphis. She includes an African American woman and child. The two figures recall the 1866 emancipation of enslaved Black people in the Chickasaw Nation. The treaty of 1866 also included a provision that the US Government grant US citizenship to members of the Chickasaw Nation. On the work's back, the Spanish conquistador, Hernando De Soto, who trespassed into Chickasaw territory in 1540, is shown. Bagwell also includes an African American man playing the guitar and the famed blues musician, William Christopher Handy. Braille on the cloak reads "Legacies." The bronze statue rests on a field-stone boulder within a Mesabi-black granite ring.

Bagwell, Vinnie, 1957-

Photographs: UrbanArt Commission

2012

UrbanArt Commission; City of Memphis

City of Memphis, 125 North Main Street, Memphis, Tennessee, 38103, United States

JPEG

English

Visual Arts-Sculpture

Chickasaw Heritage Park, 305 Metal Museum Drive, Memphis, Tennessee, 38106, United States

72 in. (182.88 cm)

Bronze (figure); Field-stone boulder (base), Mesabi-black-granite (ring)

Public Art Archive. "Legacies." Accessed February 19, 2025. https://publicartarchive.org/art/Legacies/d0118e83.

UrbanArt Commission. "Legacies." Accessed March 24, 2025. https://uacmem.org/projects/legacies.

Renée Ater

Sculpture

72 in. (182.88 cm)