Latest News in Black Art: New Weeksville CEO, Cranbrook Academy Investing $30 Million Gift in Student Diversity, Major Acquisitions at PAFA, Morgan Library, and High Museum
The following is a snapshot of the latest news in Black art: Raymond Codrington. | Courtesy Weeksville Heritage Center Appointments Brooklyn’s Weeksville Heritage Center Names New CEO Raymond Codrington is joining Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn as CEO. The news was announced April 6. A cultural anthropologist, Codrington has served as...
PAFA Receives Gift of 78 Artworks From Constance E. Clayton, Many by Artists with Ties to Philadelphia
PAINTINGS BY BEAUFORD DELANEY, Edward Bannister, Lois Mailou Jones, and Laura Wheeler Waring have been added to the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia. The works are part of a major gift from Constance E. Clayton, an arts advocate and former superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia....
Amid Rising Calls for Social Justice in America, the Clenched Fist is Appearing in Artwork and Museums
From left, “Bridge” by Glenn Kaino; Tommie Smith (center) and John Carlos at the 1968 Summer Olympics. THE CLENCHED FIST, a symbol of Black Power and strength in the face of adversity, is showing up in museums. The historic gesture reflects the current moment in which many groups, frustrated with the political climate and...
PAFA Acquires Landscape Painting by May Howard Jackson, First African American Woman to Attend the Philadelphia Art School
THE PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY of the Fine Arts (PAFA) recently acquired a particularly meaningful painting. “Morris Heights, N.Y. City” (1912) is an Impressionist landscape made by May Howard Jackson (1877-1931) more than a century ago. Jackson is a PAFA alum. She earned a scholarship in 1895 and became the first African American woman to attend...
PAFA Hired Curator Brittany Webb to Steward Legacy of African American Sculptor John Rhoden and Collection of 275+ Works
Sculptor John Rhoden (1918-2001). FIFTEEN YEARS AFTER THE DEATH of African American sculptor John Rhoden (1918-2001), his widow died in 2016. The couple was childless and Richanda Rhoden did not designate a beneficiary in her will, but she did specify that the couple’s estate should go to an institution willing to steward her husband’s...
