This year marks the 350th birthday of our fair city, Charleston, South Carolina. BC, Before Covid, we had planned a show with several of our artists that would highlight the many aspects of Charleston, including its history. Kenn Backhaus, known for his dreamy landscapes and expressive figurative work, took the historical nature of our request and created a beautiful body of work focused on the Yemassee Indians and the dethroned Queen of the South—Rice.
New Work
The Yemassee Indians were a confederation of Muskohegan tribes, they were a mixture of Native American and African American. Known for their fierce warriors and their trapping and hunting skills, the Yemassee were used as scouts helping the English and Scottish fight against the Spanish which were encroaching from Florida.
“The Yemassee bore the brunt of English Expansionism, border warfare, and demographic decline for thirty years. By 1715, they despaired of survival and retaliated with remarkable violence in April of that year.”
Taken from The History of Beaufort County by Laurence S. Rowland, Alexander Moore, and George C. Rogers, Jr.
Kenn Backhaus
Playing in the Sheaves
20 x 16 inches | Oil on canvas | 4750.00
On most plantations even the youngest slaves had a job. Playing in the Sheaves depicts the job of shaking the rice from the leaves for drying and harvest.
Kenn Backhaus
Trunk Tenders, First Light
11 x 14 inches | Oil on linen | 2650.00
“Rice trunks. ingenious devices consisting of cypress boxes with hinged gates at either end, ran through the base of the dikes and controlled the flow of the tides” (from Walter Edgar’s South Carolina, A History)
Trunk tenders managed the flow of water in and out of the fields.
Kenn Backhaus
Last Light on the Rice Cutter
24 x 18 inches | Oil on canvas | 7500.00
One of the many jobs for rice farming was the actual cutting of the sheaves. This was done with a hand held scythe.
West Fraser
Southern Spring
28 x 40 inches | Oil on linen
SOLD
West Fraser
Transitions
18 x 14 inches | Oil on linen
SOLD
West Fraser
Spring Tones
12 x 16 inches | Oil on linen panel
SOLD