Wissahickon

Sam Gilliam is a pioneering and experimental Black artist who began his practice in Washington, D.C. in the 1960s, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The AMAM has collected his works, in a range of media, since 1970. This work was printed at the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia, which has been supporting printmaking by artists from culturally diverse backgrounds since 1972. Gilliam was the workshop’s first artist-in-residence in 1975, the year Wissahickon was made. The print takes its name from a tributary of the Schuylkill River in Montgomery and Philadelphia counties, the word “wissahickon” being a corruption of the Lenape word for “stream of yellowish color” or “catfish creek.”