Verbal Description: See Alice Jump, 2011

Narrator: See Alice Jump (2011) is an acrylic painting on canvas. Measuring 76 ½ by 113 inches, this monumental painting depicts focused and exuberant track-and-field legend Alice Coachman. In 1948, she not only set the record for the high jump at the London Olympics but was the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal. 

Centrally positioned in a precise upright form, Coachman sails through the sky with ease. With her distinct facial features obfuscated by shadows and highlights, Coachman, a dark skinned woman, wears an outfit of an athletic high jumper: black sneakers, white athletic socks, white shorts, and a white fitted university jersey that reads Tuskegee without the last ‘e’. With one arm bent into a V, her other arm outstretched, both hands balled into fists, and her legs bent and tucked under her slender frame, Alice cruises over a yellow high jump bar delineated by three unconnected yellow lines. The uprights, or poles, that usually hold the high jump bar in place are replaced by a telephone pole. At the bottom third of the painting, Coachman performs her feat against the backdrop of a modest neighborhood–similar to the background houses depicted in the source photograph, which pictured her high jumping at a Tuskegee University course with houses in the background. Starting in the bottom left corner, a small house with a white picket fence conveys a small figure standing on a porch. Following a disappearing line, the rest of the block is revealed. Red, white, and brown houses and buildings—some with gable windows; some with darkened windows—extend down the street. A big, blue, clear sky predominates the background. The streak of a geometric cloud and the bulbous dark green canopy of a single tree peek out of the bottom right corner.