Smokehouse, 1968–70

These images—photographed by Robert Colton, a Smokehouse Associate—depict the collective’s original members, William T. Williams, Melvin Edwards, Guy Ciarcia, and Billy Rose, at work in Harlem, as they cleaned up sites and painted murals on city walls. Conceived and established by Williams, the collective grew to encompass a diverse range of creative practitioners united behind the transformative potential of public art.

Reflecting the members’ Southern roots and their social mission, the collective borrowed its name from the Southern vernacular “smokehouse”—a storehouse where meats are smoked and kept for times of need. They rejected the social realist imagery used by other muralists at the time, and instead believed they could change people’s perceptions through changing the physical environment and making it “visually and aesthetically better and therefore more human . . . ” Referencing the artistic applications of African and pre-Columbian societies, as well as the European Renaissance, as well as more modern influences such as Constructivism and Mexican Muralism, Smokehouse believed that the historical use of public art and the visual power of abstraction could be applied to neighborhoods throughout Harlem to improve the quality of contemporary urban life.

The collective approached each project by engaging the community at every level, consulting neighborhood organizations and leaders prior to beginning work and employing local teenagers and elders during production. Murals were never painted above fifteen feet, reflecting the group’s practical nature—the height of their ladder—as well as their mission to physically and emotionally envelop the neighborhood through their work. In turn, Smokehouse’s collaborations created a sense of self-achievement and pride within the community. Children appear often in the photographs, indicating Smokehouse’s success in engaging and transforming the Harlem community. In some, they play among a series of outdoor sculptures also made by the group.