The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 22, 2025

All of Me III

2002

Winfred Rembert

(American, 1945–2021)
America
dye on carved and tooled leather
Overall: 74.9 x 70.5 cm (29 1/2 x 27 3/4 in.)
Gift of Agnes Gund in memory of Ed Harding 2022.61
Location: 229B Contemporary

Did You Know?

Following his early release from a 27-year sentence in the Georgia prison system, and eventual relocation to New Haven, CT, Rembert documented his experiences in paintings consisting of dye on carved and tooled leather, perfecting a technique he had been taught by another person in prison named "T.J. the Tooler."

Description

While this dyed leather painting may appear abstract, the black and white stripes form chain gang uniforms worn by the artist. During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Winfred Rembert was arrested at a demonstration in Georgia. In 1967, he fled prison and survived an attempted lynching, only to be incarcerated again for several years. There, he learned to tool leather and worked on the chain gang, a group of incarcerated people chained together and forced to perform manual labor. Created decades after his release, these multiplied self-portraits evoke the personas that Rembert took on as a means of survival. "It's like I was more than one person inside myself," he described. "Taking that stance—all me—saved me."
  • Collection of the artist
    Private Collection
    2022–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Rembert, Winfred, Erin Kelly, and Bryan Stevenson. Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.
  • {{cite web|title=All of Me III|url=false|author=Winfred Rembert|year=2002|access-date=22 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2022.61