Night Coming Tenderly, Black: Untitled #2 (Trees and Farmhouse)
- Artist: Dawoud Bey
- Date: 2017, printed 2020
- Medium: Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper, mounted on aluminium
- Dimensions: image: 1118 × 1388 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is the “Night Coming Tenderly, Black: Untitled #2 (Trees and Farmhouse)” by Dawoud Bey. The image is a large gelatin‑silver print, printed in 2020 from a 2017 original. It shows a dim, black landscape of Ohio’s countryside at night—trees, a farmhouse, the edge of Lake Erie—where escaped enslaved people once moved under cover of darkness along the Underground Railroad. Bey deliberately leaves out any figures; the darkness and the glossy surface reflect the viewer’s own face, drawing you into the scene. The title echoes Langston Hughes’ line “Night coming tenderly, black like me,” tying the work to the Harlem Renaissance and the memory of blackness. Bey’s use of deep black tones pays homage to Roy DeCarava, creating a quiet, almost cinematic space that invites us to imagine the fear and hope of those fugitives. The photograph is a contemplative, tactile reminder of a hidden history that feels surprisingly present in the modern moment.
See it in person
Night Coming Tenderly, Black: Untitled #2 (Trees and Farmhouse) is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
