By the time he entered Howard University’s art education program, Earl Hooks had acquired significant skills that would supplement his studies and the work he would do in the future.  Hooks’s mentors at Howard included James Porter, James L. Wells, and Lois Mailou Jones, all, of course, under the auspices of James V. Herring.  It was while volunteering at Freedman’s Hospital in the department of occupational therapy that he developed his pottery skills.  The hospital was well stocked with equipment for throwing and firing clay and Hooks spent as much time as he could there learning the craft of ceramics.

Upon graduation, he began a teaching stint at Shaw University in North Carolina, where he found the abundance of natural clays provided excellent material for his craft.  It was here that his work was noticed by Harold Brennan, administrator for the School for American Craftsmen, Rochester, NY.  Hooks was invited to attend the school’s graduate division.  He attended the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1954 and the School of American Craftsman in 1955.

In 1955, Hooks headed to Gary, Indiana. Despite his attempt to establish the Studio A Gallery for both white and black artists in the city, the venture folded within the first year. Hooks went on to work as a teacher and art consultant in the Gary public school system.  In addition to teaching, Hooks showed his work extensively, including the 21st, 23rd, and 24th Ceramic National Exhibitions held at the Everson Museum of Art.  Hooks presented a stoneware ashtray with gray green mat glaze (#103) at the 21st Ceramic National Exhibition (1960).  He presented Stoneware Fruit Forms (#225) at the 23rd Ceramic National Exhibition (1964)- this work is now in the collection of Fisk University, TN and is illustrated in Ceramics: A Potter’s Handbook, Glenn C. Nelson, p. 172.  Hooks presented Life Form No. 2 (#31), described as stoneware, hand built, black slip with black slip trailing, in the 24th Ceramic National Exhibition held in 1966. The Everson Museum currently has one of the largest holdings of American ceramics in the nation.  The inclusion of works by historically important African American ceramicists is necessary to present a complete portrait of the craft - that which is reflective of the African American experience and expression, which in turn broadens the reach of an institution to its community.

At the invitation of David Driskell, Hooks went to Tennessee in 1967 to join the fine arts faculty at Fisk University, where he remained until 1997.

Man of Sorrows, is an extremely important and celebrated work by the artist, as well as a significant mid-century sculpture by an African American artist.  The subject is an iconic devotional image that was addressed by artists throughout history, including versions by Albrecht Duhrer and James Ensor.  Hooks’ close friend, Marion Perkins’ Man of Sorrows (1950) is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Perkins said this about his own work: “It shows the Negro peoples’ conception of Christ as a Negro—which is as it should be.” (The Black Chicago Renaissance, Darlene Clark Hine and John McCluskey, Jr, 2012, p. 191.)

The 1931 poem by Langston Hughes, Christ in Alabama conflates the crucifixion of Christ with a lynched black man.  James H. Cone draws the same comparison in his book, The Cross and The Lynching Tree:

The lynched black victim experiences the same fate as the crucified Christ and this became the most potent symbol for understanding the true meaning of the salvation achieved through ‘God on the Cross.’

Exhibited

A Homecoming: Selected Works of Art by Earl J. Hooks (1927-2005), The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, Sept 12, 2006-Feb 16, 2007.

Literature: 

Two Centuries of Black American Art, David Driskell (catalog accompanying the exhibition, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1976), p. 202 (marble version)

A Century of African American Art: The Paul R. Jones Collection, plate 69, p. 171.  This marble version was purchased by Paul R. Jones at the exhibition of work by David Driskell and Earl Hooks at Fisk University.

This unique example of Hooks’ iconic image in ceramic is arguably the most important version. While the artist successfully worked in virtually every medium, it might be fair to say he thought in clay.  Whether he was painting, taking photos or creating sculpture in other materials, the vast majority of his work references, directly or indirectly, his work in ceramics.  

The following example of the Man of Sorrows in bronze was sold at public auction in May 2020.  If one were to consider the market values of unique work in various mediums by Elizabeth Catlett to similar or identical images cast in bronze, it would be clear that the hand built (or carved) one-of-a-kind examples far exceeded the bronzes in price and desirability.