Gayhead Cliffs, Martha's Vineyard

Delilah W. Pierce belonged to a generation of Black artists associated with Howard University, an institution central to the development of the Black art world in Washington, DC. Pierce taught art in the DC public schools and was a visiting professor at Howard. Along with Loïs Mailou Jones and Alma Thomas, Pierce was a member of the Little Paris Group, a collective of Black artists that traveled and exhibited together. Much of Pierce’s expressive work is dedicated to nature, landscapes, seascapes, and abstraction. Peirce painted in the Impressionistic style of European modernists, creating heavily impastoed surfaces that enlivened the colors and forms of her paintings. 

Like Jones, her friend and fellow Howard University artist, Pierce traveled to Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, on Martha’s Vineyard, with her family in the summers. In 1962, she and her husband built a house there.[1] The Black enclave of Oak Bluffs was frequented by many Howard University artists, who found its art scene both liberating and inspiring.[2] Gay Head Cliffs, Martha’s Vineyard depicts the cliffs at what is now known as Aquinnah, a scenic coast noted for its bright red clay and views of the Atlantic Ocean. As a landscape artist, Pierce participated in a long tradition of American painting dominated by White male artists whose gazes staked exclusionary claims to the land. Pierce’s view of the cliffs can be seen as a counterclaim, as she depicts the Atlantic as a scene of liberation and beauty rather than the site of epic sorrow that was the Middle Passage. 

Text by Rebecca Shipman and Adrienne L. Childs as part of the Seeing U.S. Research Project

[1] Stephan McDow II, interview by Rebecca Shipman, May 15, 2023. 

[2] Chesapeake Collectibles, episode 1012, aired August 3, 2020, on Maryland Public Television, https://video.mpt.tv/video/episode-1012-yfb9v0.