The history of Black artists in the American South is one of unique isolation. Many, such as the Gee’s Bend quilters and Nellie Mae Rowe, worked outside of established practices, telling intensely local stories in intensely local ways. This applied to the materials themselves. Look at Lonnie Holley’s use of debris; Thorton Dial’s use of soil. Drawing its title from a poem by Langston Hughes, Souls Grown Deep Like the Rivers celebrates some of the American South’s most ingenious and revered Black artists. —Clara Molot