Born on October 8, 1940, in Fuquay, North Carolina, Beverly Buchanan was adopted by Marion and Walter Buchanan. She grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina, where her adoptive father, then dean of agriculture at South Carolina State College, introduced her to tenant farming communities. The trips to these farms with her father left a lasting impression on her, which eventually took root in her artistic practice.

She initially pursued a career in science: Buchanan earned a B.A. in medical technology from Bennett College, followed by master’s degrees from Columbia University in parasitology and public health. She worked for years as a medical technician and public health educator in New York and New Jersey.  But in the early 1970s, Buchanan, who had been accepted to medical school, chose to indulge her artistic side, driven by a desire to “express the images, stories, and architecture of her African American childhood” (1)

In 1971, she enrolled at the Art Students League in New York, studying under Norman Lewis. There, she met Romare Bearden, who became a mentor and connected her with the artist-run Cinque Gallery, marking a pivotal step toward her full-time art career. By 1977, Buchanan committed fully to art, moving to Macon, Georgia, to teach and immerse herself in the Southern landscape.

The sharecropper’s shack is a recurring motif in Buchanan’s work and appears across a variety of mediums including painting, sculpture, video, land art, assemblage, and found objects. For Buchanan, these structures served as a “metaphor for the triumph of the human spirit over poverty and adversity.” (2.)

One of her most significant works, Marsh Ruins (1981), was a land art intervention using concrete and tabby (a composite of lime, water, sand, oyster shells, and ash).

“In 1981, Buchanan strategically placed her Georgia land work Marsh Ruins near the site of the 1891 mob lynching of Wesley Lewis and Henry Jackson, and overlooking St. Simons Island, where a group of Igbo people sold into slavery drowned themselves in 1803.” (3)

In addition to the location of the work, her use of tabby had a greater historical significance as well.  Tabby was used throughout the American South to construct shacks and quarters for enslaved people. Her installation was meant to shift and disintegrate with time.

References:

1. Klacsmann, Karen. "Beverly Buchanan." New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Mar 22, 2021. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/beverly-buchanan-1940-2015/

2. Gregory, Alicia. “5 Fast Facts: Beverly Buchanan: Broad Strokes Blog.” National Museum of Women in the Arts, 15 Dec. 2024, nmwa.org/blog/5-fast-facts/5-fast-facts-beverly-buchanan/.