NEW GRANTS ARE HELPING TO PRESERVE 27 U.S. sites dedicated to African American history. Sites connected to Boston artists; Los Angeles architect Paul Williams; and the historic homes performer and activist Paul Robeson, blues legend Muddy Waters, inventor Lewis Latimer, and poet Lucille Clifton, are among the beneficiaries. The support from the National Trust...
CHRISTIE’S AUCTION HOUSE is providing an online platform for emerging and mid-career artists to sell their work. It’s not an auction, rather it’s a virtual selling exhibition with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the artists. “Say It Loud” is a collaboration with independent curator Destinee Ross-Sutton and features 22 international artists of...
Artist Michael Armitage. | Photo courtesy White Cube ONE OF THE MOST THOUGHT-PROVOKING figures in contemporary painting, Kenyan artist Michael Armitage probes the politics and cultural history of East Africa. His fascinating narrative scenes have a mythical quality and abstract tendencies that draw on aesthetic tensions between European traditions and East African modernism. In...
Cover Portrait by Alexis Franklin | September 2020 HER LIFE MATTERS. The words appear along with the name of Breonna Taylor on the September issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. A beautiful portrait of the 26-year-old emergency room technician created by digital artist Alexis Franklin graces the cover. The magazine enlisted Franklin and...
THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART (NGA) announced a major appointment this week. Sheila McDaniel is joining the museum as administrator, leading teams critical to the museum’s operations: administrative support, architecture and capital improvement, facilities, horticulture, personnel, procurement, and security. Her appointment is historic. McDaniel is the first Black woman to hold an executive officer post...
July 26. 2020: Casket of Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) crosses the Edmund Pettus Bridge by horse drawn caisson in Selma, Ala. | Photo by AP Photo/John Bazemore, © 2020 The Associated Press AMERICA PAID HOMAGE to the Honorable John Lewis (1940-2020) this week in the cities where his biography unfolded in ceremonies worthy of...
Portrait of Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. | Photo by Anthony Geathers, Used with permission AN ENDURING IMAGE of the Civil Rights Movement, John Lewis (1940-2020) took a knee. It was the summer of 1962 and he was leading a vigil outside a “whites only” swimming pool...
PAINTINGS ARE POWERFUL. They influence generations of artists (Picasso’s “Guernica”), encourage pilgrimages to museums (Amy Sherald’s portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama), and garner millions of dollars at auction (“Past Times” by Kerry James Marshall). Inspired by Francis Bicknell Carpenter’s “First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln” (1864), artist Fulton Leroy Washington...
THE SCENES AND SITUATIONS in Neo Matloga‘s collage paintings are familiar. He captures small groups gathered in living rooms and around dining tables, couples engaged in intimate conversations, and individuals in the midst of introspective moments. Combining images cut from books and magazines with ink and charcoal line drawings, Matloga creates compelling characters...
THE PERMANENT COLLECTION of the National Gallery of Art (NGA) includes more than 150,000 objects—paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, prints, drawings, and photographs. Only 25 of them are by Native American artists, including Jaune Quick-to-See Smith‘s “I See Red: Target” (1992), the first painting by a Native American artist to enter the collection, which was...
LIVE SALES AT THE BIG AUCTION HOUSES have returned and at Phillips works by several black artists stood out in the results. On July 2, the Phillips New York 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale featured 25 premium lots and all found buyers. Seven black artists were represented including Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Hammons,...
THE MUTUAL ADMIRATION between storytellers Zadie Smith and Toyin Ojih Odutola is palpable. The British novelist has written about the Nigerian-born visual artist’s work for British Vogue and contributed an essay to her forthcoming catalog, “Toyin Ojih Odutola: A Countervailing Theory,” which will accompany a show at the Barbican Centre in London, the artist’s...
MUSEUM OPERATIONS CONTINUE TO CHURN as institutions navigate months of challenges resulting from COVID-19. Museums are facing budget constraints in the wake of the virus. At the same time, several are dealing with accusations of racism from staff and former staff. Many remain temporarily closed and others are joining a wave of re-openings. Three...
AN UNPRECEDENTED RETROSPECTIVE dedicated to Emma Amos (1937-2020) has been in the works for five years and is forthcoming in 2021 at the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia in Athens. Shawnya Harris is curating “Emma Amos: Color Odyssey.” Amos was a progressive painter. From the beginning, she explored and challenged...
ARTNOIR IS AN INVALUABLE RESOURCE for artists, and serves as a nexus for curators and cultural producers. The global collective organizes artist talks, exhibition tours, studio visits, and a variety of other experiences designed to engage and educate a new generation of creatives and collectors. ARTNOIR has partnered with museums and brands, Aperture, For...
“THIRD AND RHODE ISLAND” depicts a residential block in Washington, D.C. The painting captures a row of red brick homes, a white wood porch, concrete walkways, and leafless trees. The circa 1930-40 work by Hilda Wilkinson Brown (1894-1981) is in the collection of the American Art Museum in Washington. Another artist, Lilian Thomas Burwell,...
“A Great Day in Harlem” (2020) by Chase Hall On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions INITIALLY ENVISIONED IN RESPONSE to the global coronavirus pandemic, the Public Art Fund’s “50 Artists: Art on the Grid” exhibition came together with the ensuing police protests and racial justice movement top of mind. The project...
“Distant Summer” by Kadir Nelson. | The New Yorker, July 6 and July 3, 2020 SHORTLY AFTER DELIVERING a sobering cover documenting the history of racial injustice, violence, and killing endured by Africa Americans throughout U.S. history, culminating with the murder of George Floyd, Kadir Nelson produced an homage to childhood summer joy. The...
PROTESTORS HAVE BEEN MARCHING throughout the United States and internationally out of frustration, anger, and fear following the latest spate of police killings. Since late May, people have taken to the streets chanting Black Lives Matter and calling for racial justice, often facing violent reprisals from law enforcement. The collective actions are meant to...
In 1974, Linda Goode Bryant founded Just Above Midtown gallery in New York City. | Photo by Oresti Tsonopoulos THE FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR of Just Above Midtown (JAM), Linda Goode Bryant “has had a massive effect on the trajectory of countless artists and has changed the course of art history in the process.” For...
Turner Prize 2025 Shortlist of Four British Artists Includes Nnena Kalu and Rene Matić
Apr 24, 2025
Diallo Simon-Ponte is Joining Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, as Inaugural Sam Gilliam Assistant Curator of Artist Programs
Apr 23, 2025
On View: ‘Alberta Whittle: Towards a Motherful Loving Praxis, We Cast Seeds Into the Darkness’ at Nicola Vassell Gallery in New York
Apr 19, 2025
Jack Shainman Gallery Now Represents the Estate of Faith Ringgold, ‘Artist Played Significant Role in Shaping Culture of American Art’
Apr 17, 2025
On View: ‘Robert Carter and Charles White in Dialogue’ Presents Moving Figurative Compositions at ACA Galleries in New York
Apr 12, 2025
