Artwork description:

The term ‘nurse-maid’ has a wide historical use, mostly related to servants charged with the care of children. In ancient times the terms ‘nurse-maid’ and ‘nurse’ are largely interchangeable.

Everything that a parent ordinarily might do, especially the more onerous tasks, could be turned over to a nursemaid. Feeding very young children and supervising somewhat older children at meal times, seeing that the children are dressed properly, watching over the children as they play outside, and other such tasks could be left to a nursemaid.

In folklore the black nursemaid was seen as a dutiful, self-sacrificing black woman who loved her white family and its children every bit as much as her own. Yet the popular images of the loyal, contented black nursemaid, or “mammy”, a term used in many popular movies and songs of years gone by, were unfortunately far from the reality for the African-American women who worked in these homes.

The image highlights a history largely forgotten, mis-remembered or erased overtly from popular culture. Through creating a divide between the shaded figure of the black maid and the unshaded child emphasising their whiteness observes the words of William Blake in his famous poem 'The Little Black Boy', a poem about and against slavery:

'...White as an angel is the English child:
But I am black as if bereav'd of light.'

Materials used:

Embossed Linoprint on Rosapina Ivory Fabriano

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