History has a way of bleeding into the present. Sometimes literally. When Mamie Till-Mobley decided to leave her son’s casket open in 1955, she wasn't just grieving; she was weaponizing her pain against a country that preferred to look away. She wanted the world to see what they did to her boy. Fast forward to the 2017 Whitney Biennial, and a different kind of looking sparked a national firestorm. The Emmett Till open casket painting, titled Open Casket by white artist Dana Schutz, became the center of a debate so vitriolic it almost shut down one of the most prestigious art shows in America.
It wasn't just about the paint. It was about who has the right to tell a story of trauma.
The Painting That Broke the Whitney
Dana Schutz didn't expect a protest. She's a celebrated painter known for her gestural, almost grotesque style. But when she decided to interpret the famous photograph of Emmett Till’s mutilated face, she stepped into a minefield of representation. The painting is small. It’s abstract. You can see the thick impasto—the heavy application of paint—meant to mimic the reconstructed features of a boy who had been beaten, shot, and thrown into the Tallahatchie River.
People hated it.
I’m not talking about a few bad reviews. I’m talking about protestors standing in front of the canvas for hours, blocking it from view with their own bodies. The most vocal critic, artist Hannah Black, penned an open letter to the Whitney curators. Her demand was radical: the painting should not only be removed but destroyed. Black argued that white artists shouldn't "convert Black suffering into profit and fun," or even just "artistic fodder."
It brings up a messy question. Can a white artist ever truly engage with Black trauma without it being exploitative? Schutz claimed her interest came from a place of "maternal empathy." She saw Mamie Till-Mobley’s courage as a mother and wanted to honor it. Critics, however, saw it as a form of cultural "vulture-ism." They felt the Emmett Till open casket painting was a literal abstraction of a real, visceral Black nightmare that white people are historically responsible for.
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Why the Original Image Matters More Than the Art
To understand the fury, you have to understand the source. In August 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was kidnapped and murdered after allegedly whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in Money, Mississippi. When his body was returned to Chicago, it was unrecognizable. His mother, Mamie, famously said, "Let the people see what I've seen."
She invited Jet magazine. She invited the press. Thousands of people filed past that casket. That image—the bloated, distorted face of a child—became the spark that lit the Civil Rights Movement. Rosa Parks later said she thought of Emmett Till when she refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery.
So, when an artist like Schutz takes that specific image—an image that belongs to the collective memory of Black survival and resistance—and turns it into a "style," it feels like a violation to many. It’s the difference between a funeral and a gallery opening. One is for mourning. The other is for "appreciation."
The controversy didn't just stay in the halls of the Whitney. It leaked into every corner of the art world. You had people like Coco Fusco arguing against censorship, saying that telling artists what they can and can't paint is a dangerous path. Then you had others like Parker Bright, who led the physical protests, wearing a shirt that said "Black Death Spectacle" on the back. It was raw. It was loud. It was honestly some of the most important dialogue the art world had seen in decades.
Aesthetic Choices and the "Gaze"
Let’s talk about the actual look of the Emmett Till open casket painting. Schutz used a technique where she built up the paint and then "carved" into it. It’s tactile. In some ways, it tries to capture the physical reality of the trauma. But some argue that by abstracting the face, she actually softened the blow.
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The original photo is sharp, cold, and undeniable. It’s a document. The painting, by contrast, is an interpretation. Is an interpretation even allowed when the subject is this heavy? Some art historians point out that white artists have been painting the suffering of others for centuries. Think of Goya’s The Third of May 1808. But the power dynamic here is different. Goya was painting his own people being slaughtered by an invading force. Schutz was painting a victim of a system that she, by virtue of her skin color, occupies a different space in.
It’s about the "gaze." Who is looking? Who is being looked at? When Mamie Till-Mobley opened the casket, she was forcing a white-supremacist society to look at its own handiwork. When Schutz paints it, the gaze shifts. It becomes about the artist’s emotional reaction to the event, rather than the event itself.
The Aftermath: Did Anything Change?
The Whitney didn't take the painting down. They kept it up, but they added a long wall text explaining the controversy. They held forums. They let people scream. In the end, the painting wasn't destroyed, but Schutz did say she wouldn't sell it. She didn't want to profit from it.
But the ripple effect was huge. Since 2017, museums have become much more sensitive—some say too sensitive—about what they exhibit. Curators are now hyper-aware of "social license." Do they have the right to show this? Will this cause a protest?
Interestingly, this wasn't the first time Emmett Till appeared in art. Black artists have been grappling with his ghost for seventy years. From Jason Moran’s jazz compositions to the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks, Till’s story is a foundational text of American life. The difference is the perspective. When a Black artist engages with Till, there is a shared lineage of risk. When a white artist does it, it can feel like a choice they get to walk away from at the end of the day.
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How to Approach This History Today
If you’re looking at the Emmett Till open casket painting today, or any art that deals with historical trauma, you have to look past the brushstrokes. You have to ask about the "why."
- Look at the source material. Before judging the painting, look at the 1955 photographs. Understand the political intent Mamie Till-Mobley had. She was a media genius who knew that a picture was worth more than a thousand speeches.
- Research the artist's intent versus the impact. Schutz said she wanted to feel the "impossibility" of the situation. Does her intent matter if the impact causes pain to the community represented? This is the core of the E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) debate in cultural criticism.
- Check out the Black artists who responded. Artists like Henry Taylor and Kara Walker have dealt with similar themes of violence and history. Comparing their work to Schutz’s provides a much clearer picture of how "vantage point" changes the meaning of a piece.
Basically, art isn't just about beauty. Sometimes it's a mirror, and sometimes it's a magnifying glass. The Schutz controversy proved that the American wound hasn't healed. It’s still tender. You can't just paint over it and expect everyone to admire the technique.
To really get a handle on this, you should look into the "Mamie Till-Mobley Memorial" efforts and the recent Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument designations. Seeing how the family and the government are choosing to memorialize this site provides a necessary contrast to the way the art world handled it. The real "masterpiece" isn't a painting at all—it was Mamie's decision to let the world see the truth, raw and unedited.
If you're ever in Washington D.C., go to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. They have the actual casket. Standing in front of that cold metal is a completely different experience than standing in front of a canvas in a New York gallery. It’s heavy. It’s real. And it doesn't need a single drop of paint to tell you exactly what happened.
Practical Next Steps for Further Learning:
Search for the 2017 Whitney Biennial public forum recordings. Listening to the actual voices of the protestors and the curators gives you a sense of the heat in the room that a written article just can't fully capture. You should also look up the work of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Mississippi. They do the hard, boots-on-the-ground work of racial reconciliation and truth-telling that goes far beyond the walls of any museum. Reading Mamie Till-Mobley’s autobiography, Death of Innocence, is also essential for anyone trying to understand why that open casket remains the most powerful image in American history.