A portrait of a man holding a flower wears a brown cap and matching brown jacket under a stripe…

Jerry

Artist Emma Cheves Wilkins (American, 1870 - 1956)

Sitter Jerry L. Dickerson (American, born c. 1872)

Datec. 1942

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsCanvas: 30 1/8 × 25 inches (76.5 × 63.5 cm)
Framed: 35 13/16 × 30 13/16 × 1 1/4 inches (91 × 78.3 × 3.2 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mrs. Stella Henderson on behalf of Emma Cheves Wilkins.

Object number1974.2

On View

Not on view

Copyright© Estate of Emma Cheves Wilkins. The images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextSavannah artist Emma Cheves Wilkins was active with the Telfair Academy of Arts & Sciences, and she frequently advocated to include local artists in the museum’s activities and exhibitions. This effort continues at Telfair today with programs like #art912 that showcase work by artists in greater Chatham County. Wilkins probably completed this portrait of longtime Telfair janitor Jerry Dickerson near his retirement in 1944, after over 25 years of maintaining the site. He lived in the basement level of the offices of the building, the location of the former slave quarters and carriage house for the mansion. He also was known to give informal tours of the museum. In this portrait, Wilkins shows Dickerson in his work attire, an apron covering his collared shirt, tie, and pin, and with a feather duster in hand. Jerry Dickerson was one of several African American men who worked as janitors and preserved the artwork and building we enjoy today. He was preceded by Abraham (Abram) L. Mungin, janitor from at least 1898 to around his death in 1919; Robert S. Baker, janitor in the late 1880s and early 1890s; and George Gibbons, who was enslaved by the Telfairs from birth and continued to live and work on site as a domestic servant after the Civil War and after Margaret and Mary Telfair’s deaths, until his own death in 1884.

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