African American Art

detail of Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Banjo Lesson, 1893. Oil on canvas. 49 x 35.5 in. Hampton University Museum. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Henry Ossawa Tanner's Life and Art
The first African American painter to receive international critical acclaim, expressive realist Henry Ossawa Tanner exhibited at the Paris Salon, received honors from the French government, and…
Beauford Delaney painitng
12 African American Artists You Should Know More About
African American artists have contributed to this nation’s cultural landscape throughout its history. From colonial to modern times, realistic portraiture to striking abstractions, here we …
Augusta Savage posing with her sculpture Realization, created as part of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. Photo by Andrew Herman, circa 1938. Wikimedia Commons
Augusta Savage: Pioneering Black Sculptor of the Harlem Renaissance

Acclaimed American sculptor, activist, and arts educator Augusta Savage (1892—1962) was a central figure in the …

Bob Thompson, An Allegory, 1964, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Thomas Bellinger 72.137
Bob Thompson's Timeless Strokes: Navigating Identity and Tradition in Art

During the postwar era, movements were still a thing, and midcentury New York was the place where they were being minted. It mattered which program you were getting with, and in…

Installation view, Nick Cave: Forothermore, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, November 18, 2022–April 10, 2023.
Nick Cave's Forothermore

If your tastes in art run toward the intricately detailed, you’ll find a lot to like in the Guggenheim’s retrospective of …

"Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott," 2022. New Museum, New York. (L-R) See Colescott's We Await Thee, (1964), Nubian Queen (1966), and Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1968).
Colescott Retrospective “Art and Race Matters” is a Must-See
Fresh off its survey of Faith Ringgold, the New Museum presents a retrospective of another veteran African American painter whose aesthetic DNA courses through subsequent generations of black artists…
Darryl Cowherd. Stop White Police from Killing Us – St. Louis, MO, c. 1966-67. Gelatin Silver Print. Image: 15 x 19 in., mat: 20 x 24 ¼ in., paper 16 x 20 in.
Northwestern University to Host "A Site of Struggle"
A Site of Struggle takes a new approach to looking at the intersection of race, violence and art by examining how American artists have grappled with anti-Black violence over a 100+ year period, from…
Richard Dial (American, born 1955), The Comfort of the First Born, 1988. Mixed media (welded steel, plastic tubing, paint). 69 1/2 x 46 x 39 in.
Living Legacies: A Landmark Exhibition of African American Art
Twenty-four exemplary works acquired over the last two years from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, one of the most important organizations supporting the work of African American artists from the…
Christie's Studio Visit with Artist Khari Turner
Christie's Studio Visit with Artist Khari Turner

 

Khari Turner creates striking paintings that combine abstraction and figuration in order to, as he puts it, ‘rejuvenate the relationship of my history to my ancestors’ history with…

Jennifer Mack-Watkins, Detail of Katherine, 2020. Silkscreen. 9 x 12.
The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center Hosts Children of the Sun
The exhibition takes inspiration from a 1920s children’s periodical which was widely regarded in children’s literature as the pioneering effort to feature positive, contemporary content and imagery…
A map is laid out with various colored stone to create a floor and walkway. The coppery walls are lined with back-lit shapes that appear to coincide with various religious beliefs and institutions.
Museum of African American History & Culture May Virtual Program
The National Museum of African American History and Culture’s May programming features a special conversation on the landmark African Burial Ground project that revealed a greater history behind…
Collaged Drawings of faces, hands, and words frame a photo of a the artist
High Museum Celebrates Self-Taught Artist Nellie Mae Rowe
Really Free is the first major presentation of her work in more than twenty years and the first to consider her practice as a radical act of self-expression and liberation in the post-civil…
Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America, image showing design conception drawing for community
Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America

How does race structure America’s cities? MoMA’s first exhibition to explore the relationship between architecture and the spaces of African American and African diaspora communities, …

Black and white photo of seated Fred Stewart II and Tyler Collins. Both look at camera.
Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America
The exhibition brings together works that address black grief as a national emergency in the face of a politically orchestrated white grievance.
Tunji Adeniyi-Jones painting of a nude figure in dark blues
Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists
The coffee-table tome "Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists" is a must-have monograph for anyone interested in assembling—or simply appreciating—a momentous art collection.