GALLERY 1
This portrait was painted in commemoration of the 15th anniversary of the Marian Anderson Award established in 1942 by Ms. Anderson to help aspiring singers. The portrait was unveiled on August 25, 1957, in ceremonies at the home of playwright-composer Dorothy Fields in Brewster, New York. The portrait was later presented to the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Before entering the Thomas’ private collection, it was regularly exhibited at the Kennedy Center as the official portrait of the Marian Anderson Vocal Award Concert. The Award recognizes a young American singer in opera, oratorio, or recital repertoire with outstanding promise.
Hubert Jackson’s “Spirits of Cold Harbor” pays homage to the ancestors who fought and died for freedom. In his words, the “symbolic use of pine bark figures to represent spirits of long forgotten ancestors.” Jackson’s painting combines fired bullets with cut cedar wood and pine bark to create rows and figures to represent the rows of men felled in an ill-conceived frontal attack on entrenched Confederate troops. It is important to note that Jackson was mentored by Hughie Lee-Smith whose art is highlighted in Gallery 2.
“Douglass,” by the acclaimed artist, Jacob Lawrence is a silkscreen done in collaboration with the late Master Printer, Lou Stovall. This limited edition was commissioned in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the National Association of Black Journalists. Jacob Lawrence's panel depicts Frederick Douglass as the founding editor of The North Star newspaper upon return from an abolitionist tour of speaking engagements in England. Frederick Douglass, who self-liberated, sought always to keep the spirits of his people alive. He was zealous in his work and like Harriet Tubman, untiring in his effort. Therefore, it is fitting that on the opposite wall, is one of Elizabeth Catlett's portraits of Harriet Tubman. Leading a group of enslaved souls to freedom, she points in the direction of the Promised Land navigated by the celestial North Star in her navigation.
GALLERY 2
“Stories that the eyes tell” – women from across the globe present a powerful, collective gaze. At the center of this group of strong women stands Ellen Elizabeth, mother of Drs. Margo and Yonette Thomas. Like the other women on the wall, her gaze meets ours unapologetically, with profound presence. They look at us and past us simultaneously. It is their eyes that tell the stories of their lives and visions for future generations. Their eyes tell stories of love, of joy and pain, of fortitude and perseverance, and hope. They are contemplative, prayerful, and grateful for the beauty and sustenance that the bountiful Earth provides.
Dance is often considered to be a physical expression of the spirit. These two ballerinas, rendered by different artists, reflect one another with perfect symmetry. The extension of their bodies, indicative of movement within a still image, is expressive of the freedom that the artistic spirit grants while in the creative flow.
GALLERY 3
White Gold by the identical twin brothers, Jerry and Terry Lynn, artistically known as TWIN, each a talented artist in his own right, render their collaborative artistic genius to create this masterpiece. The brothers worked simultaneously on this piece and produced “an image so succinct in technique and style that it cannot be distinguished as a collaboration by two artists.”
Mother and Child by James Denmark (born 1936) is another of the artist’s masterful collages. Denmark was raised in segregated Winter Haven, Florida. In his early years, Denmark trained himself by copying characters from well-known comic books, but later switched to drawing birds and carving small sculptures from lye soap. He obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1960 at FAMU, where he studied with the esteemed artist and art historian Samella Lewis, who instilled in him a deep appreciation for African American artists. As part of his studies towards a master's degree, Denmark sought inspiration from some of the twentieth century’s most renowned artists, including Jackson Pollock, William de Kooning, Norman Lewis, and Jacob Lawrence, whose abstract, colorful style and dynamic collages had a profound effect on Denmark’s practice. In an auspicious first encounter, Denmark, on his way to a studio class, saw Lawrence heading up the stairs to teach his afternoon session. Denmark followed the artist, attending Lawrence’s class even though he was not formally registered. He notes that it was Lawrence who first introduced him to Romare Bearden and Alvin Hollingsworth.
Denmark’s collages, watercolors, and woodcuts have been exhibited widely. His work is held by numerous institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now a resident of Yemassee, South Carolina, Denmark has been the subject of over sixty one-man exhibitions and has also participated in a number of group shows. In 1980, he received the prestigious Living Legends Award from the National Urban League.
GALLERY 4
This Gallery is dedicated to the Smith-Herman Collection of Art and Ephemera. A trans-Atlantic spectrum of artistic movements, time periods, and mediums are represented here, culminating in a narrative of social, political, and cultural transitions of immigration into the United States and change in the Global South as experienced in South Africa.
In an interview Clementine Hunter said: “I just get it in my mind, and I just go ahead and paint, but I can't look at nothing and paint. No trees, no nothing. I just make my own tree in my mind, that's the way I paint.” She was almost entirely self- taught and created her easily identifiable paintings of the Melrose Plantation when she began collecting the leftover paints after the Plantation had been converted to an artists’ colony. She had previously worked on the plantation as well as neighboring areas in the Cane River Valley in Louisiana. Cotton picking and harvesting pecans are regular themes in her paintings as is the Africa House. The Africa House, a unique, nearly square structure with an umbrella-like roof may be of direct African derivation and is seen in the painting in the gallery. It still stands at Melrose which is open to visitors. By the mid-1940’s, her work was being recognized and, ultimately, was shown and appreciated well beyond her front yard where she originally sold her paintings for 25 cents. Northwestern State University of Louisiana granted her an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1986, and in 2013, composer Robert Wilson presented a modern opera about her: Zinnias: The Life of Clementine Hunter, at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
The original story quilt exist as part of a series of 12 known as The French Collection. “Sunflowers” is the fourth in this series where the artist explored the often-absent role of African American women in the art-world, particularly in Paris during the 1920s. Ringgold places the National Sunflower Quilter Society of America in Vincent Van Gogh’s iconic field of sunflowers in Arles, France. The Society are introduced as “…Madame Walker, Sojourner Truth, Ida Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Mary McLeod Bethune and Ella Baker, a fortress of African American Women’s courage, with enough energy to transform a nation piece by piece.” Sunflowers are a symbol of trust and loyalty and were the inspiration for the gold color adopted by early suffragists as “the color of light and life, is as the torch that guides our purpose, pure and unswerving.” Look for one of the members of the Society in the vitrine standing in the gallery.
Other artists in this gallery, including Emma Amos and Evangeline (EJ) Montgomery, represent the focus of the collector on an arc to abstraction and expressionism by African American women over the last decade. Another area of interest is in emerging and currently active woman artists as seen in the objects hanging in the windows. They let light in but also command our attention.
Hargreaves Ntukwana was born in Johannesburg, the City of Gold. He was a multi-talented musician (double bass, saxophone and piano), sculptor, painter and photographer and one of the first Black South Africans to have his work exhibited widely in his home country and abroad. His first overseas one- man exhibition took place in London in 1973 and the following year his first United States exhibition was in Boston in 1974. Hargreaves used the technique of blowing diluted oils onto paper, wiping the excess with cloth and cotton swabs then inking over the colored background when it dried. The piece hanging in the gallery depicts the weapons of choice for a Zulu warrior, the ‘iklwa’, a short stabbing spear, and the ‘isihlangu’, a large shield. Under the leadership of King Shaka Zulu, foreigners, especially British colonialists, were both awed and terrified by these African warriors. European diaries from the 19th century often allude to the imposing sight of Zulu impi (warrior units) on the march, with their weapons designed for close combat, rhythmic chants, and precise formations.