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2020.101.4, Painting
Big Daddy's House at Hickory Hill
2020.101.4, Painting

Big Daddy's House at Hickory Hill

Dateca. 1996
Maker Bernice Sims ((d. October 23, 2014))
OriginAmerica, Alabama, Brewton
MediumAcrylic on canvas
DimensionsOverall: 24 × 30in. (61 × 76.2cm)
Credit LineMuseum Purchase [This work is copyrighted. Please see Registrar before use.]
Object number2020.101.4,A&B
DescriptionScene of various people outside of a small yellow house with brown roof. Children in the foreground play with a ball, jump rope and other activities. In the background, one woman gets water from a well while another hangs laundry on a line. On the front porch two boys sit on a bench while an older, bearded man sits in a rocker. A central figure, perhaps “Big Daddy” sits on the front steps waving at the viewer.
Label TextBernice Sims came to art late in life after surgery left her unable to work. To stay busy, she enrolled in community college art classes and explored her long-held interest in painting. A chance meeting with noted Black artist Mose Tolliver, who lived nearby, spurred her on.

Many of Sims’s works, including this one, reflect her memories of rural childhood and family activities. Others depict her role as an early civil rights activist. In 2005, the U.S. Postal Service honored Sims with a stamp featuring her painting of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, scene of 1965’s Selma-to-Montgomery march, in which she participated.