Here Lyeth: Grave Rubbings by Ann Parker and Avon Neal offers a fascinating look at a mid-20th-century project to preserve early American gravestone art through the practice of grave rubbing. Featuring original rubbings by photographer Ann Parker and multimedia artist Avon Neal, this exhibition highlights an artistic tradition that is both historically grounded and visually striking.

Drawn entirely from the Carter’s collection, Here Lyeth presents a remarkable body of material created during the couple’s Ford Foundation-supported travels throughout New England in the 1960s. Working as husband-and-wife collaborators, Parker and Neal visited Colonial-era burial grounds to capture carved imagery that was rapidly deteriorating from age and exposure. Using rice paper and ink-soaked pads, the artists produced three portfolios containing 45 gravestone rubbings that record key motifs and symbols that illuminate early American beliefs about life, memory, and mortality.