Credit: Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art
Media type: painting
Museum Number:
Annotation: Artist Aaron Douglas created illustrations to accompany James Weldon Johnson's 1927 book, God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. Douglas also painted this illustration, Go Down Death, to accompany Johnson's funeral sermon of the same name. In the sermon, the Angel of Death rides down on a winged horse and carries Sister Caroline into the arms of Jesus. In this painting, Douglas interprets the sermon and shows Death riding down from heaven on a horse with borrowed wings from the archangel Gabriel.
Year: 1927