The American public took note of her work in the fall of 1947 when she gave her first solo exhibition—titled Blues and Negro Folk Songs—at the Roko Gallery in New York.

[4] In 1946, Piper received a Julius Rosenwald fellowship and spent the summer traveling in the American South, "imbibing" the atmosphere, as she put it, and studying blues music.

By 1947, Piper had adopted the Picasso-influenced, flat, geometric style seen in "Slow Down, Freight Train" and "The Death of Bessie Smith" (pictured right).

[5] According to critic Graham Lock, this semi-abstract style was a fitting choice for the series because the blues themselves are stylized, often using exaggeration (such as "pouring water on a drowning man") to convey strong emotions.

"[5] Her work attracted national attention in the fall of 1947, when Piper gave her first solo exhibition at the Roko Gallery in New York.

Sponsored by Atlanta University, it was one of the most prestigious venues for black artists; fellow exhibitors included Richmond Barthé, Robert Blackburn, Jacob Lawrence, and Hale Woodruff.

[1] Piper, alongside artist such as Elder Cortor, produced images during the 1940s that illuminated the constant contemporary problems related to women's control over their bodies within social, racial, and sexual milieux.

When the Ackland Art Museum acquired the work in 1990, director Charles Millard wrote to Piper, enquiring about the origins of the title.

Over the next three decades she built a successful, albeit anonymous, career in fashion, while raising her two children and caring for ailing family members.

Her minor in geometry gave her an edge in her new line of work: she was able to design patterns on graph paper that did not need to be adjusted for the knitwear machines.

This time she adopted a whole new style, influenced by her years in textile design: instead of semi-abstraction and a subdued, melancholy palette, the later paintings combined a meticulous attention to detail and bright acrylics.

As influences, she cited Flemish School painters Hans Memling and Jan van Eyck, and the medieval Book of Hours tradition.

Describing her motivation for the series, she wrote that "the current state of many inner-city blacks is not unlike the desperate situation of the slave ancestors.