- Created by
- Cowans, Adger W., American, born 1936
- Subject of
- AfriCOBRA, founded 1968
- Date
- 1983
- Medium
- printing ink on rag paper
- Dimensions
- H x W (Sheet): 44 1/4 × 29 7/8 in. (112.4 × 75.9 cm)
- H x W (Image): 30 1/8 × 22 1/2 in. (76.5 × 57.2 cm)
- H x W (Impression): 33 1/8 × 23 7/8 in. (84.1 × 60.6 cm)
- Caption
- Adger Cowans is a member of AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists), a collective dedicated to creating positive and culturally relevant art for African Americans and other Africans in the diaspora. In 1977 the group created and exhibited a series of artworks in protest of the 1976 massacre of hundreds of high school students in Soweto, South Africa. Police officers attacked the students while they peacefully protested the mandatory replacement of native tongues with Afrikaans and English as the primary instructional languages.
- In 1980 Cowans created SOWETO, an etching made after his original 1977 painting of the same name. He incorporated the phrase “SO WE TO” to represent the unified struggle of human beings, over time and place, against the forces of racism and oppression.
- Description
- A black and white print made from a copper plate etching. The print is of an abstracted face rendered through a multitude of finely etched diagonal and horizontal black lines. The eyes are depicted by thin slits, the nose is depicted by a vertical line with two oval-shaped nostrils, and the mouth is depicted by an "o" shape. Along the bottom edge of the image, below the figure's chin, letters in Serif-style font spell [ SO WE TO]. Below the image, the artist has hand-written the edition number at left, the print titled in the middle, and his signature and date on the right.
- Place depicted
- Soweto, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa, Africa
- Classification
- Visual Arts
- Movement
- Anti-apartheid movements
- Type
- etchings
- Topic
- Africa
- Art
- Resistance
- Violence
- Credit Line
- Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
- Object number
- 2013.146.1
- Restrictions & Rights
- © Adger Cowans
- Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.




