Benny Andrews (1930-2026) was the son of a sharecropper and came up in poverty. He missed school often to help his father and used drawing to fill the gaps in his education, eventually studying at the Art Institute of Chicago. Benny Andrews is known as The People’s Painter, using a raw representational style to meet his goal of creating “a real person before the eyes.” His later works included a rough collage technique with collected papers glued on each canvas. 

Southern Pasture reflects the passions of Benny Andrews for art, politics and people. He painted the disenfranchised and dispossessed of his memory and present. This piece both whispers and screams for all caught behind the barbed wires of circumstance  –  war, injustice, poverty, addiction. . . . It seems a stark generational call of hope for finding a way to that green tree, visibly near and also far. This seems an image of injustice and heartbreak, of strength and tender care.

In this new year, may our prayers rise as our tears fall for all who suffer behind the many wires of these times. May we pray to do what we can as and for real people before the eyes. Amen.

In gratitude, faith and hope,

Sandy Prouty
Minister of Children and Families
Montview Church