Between the Lines

Benny Andrews’s 1978 book Between the Lines brings together a collection of Andrews’s writing and drawings. Over seven essays, Andrews reflects on race and power in the art world, including in his best-known piece, “On Understanding Black Art,” published in the New York Times in June 1970. The 70 drawings Andrews included share the elegant contour line that was a hallmark of his drawings for nearly five decades. These drawings depict a wide range of subjects, including images of Andrews’s early life in Georgia, surreal figures from Andrews’s Bicentennial Series, a portrait of Andrews’s artist friend Raphael Soyer, and many others. The drawings are grouped by headings like “Georgia Revisited,” “The Human Condition,” and “Studies in Black and White.” Beyond these brief descriptors, Andrews chose not to contextualize the drawings with additional text, nor did he draw any explicit connection between his writing and images he included. Andrews good friend, the artist Alice Neel, wrote the preface for the book.

Below is a selection of pages from Between the Lines: