Booklist: Curator and Designer Duro Olowu’s ‘Top 10’ Includes Fela Kuti, David Hammons, Alma Thomas, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Designer Duro Olowu A STANDARD BEARER for fashion, art, design, and style, Duro Olowu is inspired by a spectrum of individuals—cultural figures past and present, including the inimitable Grace Jones, musician and activist Fela Kuti, couturier Madame Grés (Alix Barton), and fashion designer Willi Smith. Olowu’s “Top 10” list, published in the May/June 2020...
Call and Response: Full of Drawings of Envisioned Works, Betye Saar’s Sketchbooks Serve as a ‘Wellspring of Creativity’
THE EXHIBITION CATALOG that accompanies “Betye Saar: Call and Response,” the artist’s showcase of sketchbooks and related artworks, is a real treasure. Organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the traveling exhibition features sketchbooks dating from 1970 to 2015. The show represents an important milestone for Saar, given it is...
New in 2020: African American Art Books Explore the Work of Ming Smith, Noah Davis, Horace Pippin, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and More
DOZENS OF PUBLICATIONS documenting the work of artists of African descent are scheduled to be published this year. Volumes dedicated to Noah Davis, Jordan Casteel, and Zanele Muholi coincide with major first-time exhibitions. Others are long-awaited volumes surveying the careers of established artists, such as Ming Smith, Samuel Fosso, and Richard Mayhew. The monographs...
Curator Denise Murrell and Art Historian Darby English to Receive 2020 Book Awards From College Art Association
THIS WEEK IN CHICAGO, the College Art Association (CAA) is holding its annual conference (Feb. 12-15). Amanda Williams, a Chicago-based artist who trained as an architect, is serving as keynote speaker. Kellie Jones will be honored during the Distinguished Scholar Session. And Huey Copeland, a professor of art history at Northwestern University and recipient...
Obama Portraits Inspire Soon-to-be-Released Book and Five-City Tour in 2021
WHEN THE OFFICIAL PORTRAITS of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama were unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery on Feb. 12, 2018, they garnered praise and endless opinions and inspired “pilgrimages” to Washington, D.C., to view them. Now the portraits by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald have inspired a five-city national tour...
Culture Type Picks: 14 Best Black Art Books of 2019
BLACK ARTISTS spanning generations are receiving more and more critical recognition and opportunities. Some of the most compelling illustrated art books published in 2019 are monographs contributing to the much-deserved and in many cases long-overdue attention of individual artists. New volumes are dedicated to Kwame Braithwaite, Robert Colescott, Lubaina Himid, Suzanne Jackson, and Julie...
‘Art & Race Matters’: First Comprehensive Retrospective of Robert Colescott Opens at CAC Cincinnati This Week
BLENDING PROVOCATIVE PERSPECTIVES on race and gender relations, a unique sense of humor, knowledge of Western art history, and lived experience with American identity, culture, and traditions, Robert Colescott (1925-2009) developed an insightful and thought-provoking practice that didn’t shy away from controversial topics and images that might offend. He was an exceptional painter whose...
Ta-Nehisi Coates is Launching His First Novel ‘The Water Dancer’ at Apollo Theater, a Spelman Alum Illustrated the Cover
THE NATIONAL BOOK TOUR for “The Water Dancer,” the first novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates, will kick off at the Apollo Theater on Sept. 23. Coates will be in conversation with Oprah Winfrey. The author, who testified before Congress two weeks ago about reparations for African Americans, will serve as the inaugural artist-in-residence at the...
Wil Haygood Accepts Award for ‘I Too Sing America’ Exhibition Catalog and Cites Longstanding Connections to Harlem
COLLEGE PARK, MD. — After writing biographies of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Sammie Davis Jr., Sugar Ray Robinson, and Thurgood Marshall, and a feature article published in The Washington Post that inspired the film “The Butler,” Wil Haygood authored his first exhibition catalog. “I Too Sing America: The Harlem Renaissance at 100” (Rizzoli Electa,...
Black Art History: Jacob Lawrence’s Narrative Series About Black Perseverance and American Rebellion Inspired a Cache of Children’s Books
“The Last Journey,” No. 17 from the series Harriet Tubman and the Promised Land (1967) by Jacob Lawrence OVER THE COURSE OF HIS CAREER, Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) documented the African American experience and life in Harlem. He also tackled key moments in American history through multi-panel series. A sweeping look at the history of...
Culture Type Picks: 18 Best Black Art Books of 2018
The best illustrated black art books of 2018. | Photo by Victoria L. Valentine THE INCREASED INTEREST among some museums in mounting exhibitions featuring the work of African American artists has translated into a growing number of catalogs published to document them, which is wonderful. Many of those catalogs made Culture Type’s 2018 list...
Jeffrey C. Stewart Wins National Book Award for Biography of Alain Locke
Jeffery C. Stewart accepts National Book Award on Nov. 14 THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION went to Jeffrey C. Stewart for “The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke.” Stewart’s definitive biography explores the public influence and private persona of Alain Locke (1885-1954), the gay intellectual and champion of visual artists who...
‘Royal Flush’: Artist Nina Chanel Abney Debuts in Los Angeles at Two Museums
IN A 2008 PAINTING, Nina Chanel Abney brought together the seemingly disparate images of her friend Randal, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a pack of dogs, and Michael Vick, the NFL player who was serving 21 months in prison for participating in dog fighting, when the work was made. Titled “Randaleeza,” the...
David Zwirner Announced its Worldwide Representation of the Roy DeCarava Estate
THE ESTATE OF AMERICAN ARTIST Roy DeCarava (1919–2009) is now represented worldwide by David Zwirner gallery. DeCarava trained as a painter and draftsman, before dedicating his career to photography in the mid-1940s. Through his lens, images of modern life in New York City were defined by light and shadow. The photographer’s best-known project is...
In Paris, Black Doll Exhibition Explores Women’s Craft, History of Childhood Play, and Dynamics of America’s Racial Structure
EUROPEAN MUSEUMS ARE EXPOSING THEIR AUDIENCES to works by African Americans artists that reflect and respond to the history of race in United States. Two major exhibitions, “The Color Line: African American Artists and Segregation” at Le musée du quai Branly in Paris (2016), and “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of...
Art & Agency: New Book by Peggy Cooper Cafritz Explores Her Collections and Undying Support for Artists
A NUMBER OF ART PATRONS boast impressive collections of African American art. Peggy Cooper Cafritz is probably the loan collector in the category who has assembled two. Over the course of 20-plus years, Cafritz acquired more than 300 works by artists such as Barkley L. Hendricks, Norman Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Yinka Shonibare,...
Re-Birth of the Cool: A Second Printing of the Catalog for the Seminal Barkley Hendricks Exhibition Has Been Published
A DECADE AGO TODAY, “Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool” opened at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University (Feb. 7-July 13, 2008). The traveling survey brought renewed attention to Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017), the artist and photographer whose powerful portraits dating from the 1960s and 70s masterfully capture the individuality, attitude...
Culture Type Picks: The 14 Best Black Art Books of 2017
SOME OF THE BEST ART BOOKS published this year focus on the past and the present. Exhibition catalogs such as “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women 1965-85” and “Soul of a “Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power,” and the scholarly publication “South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in...
The Artist Project: New Volume Explores What Artists See, What Inspires Them, When They Look at Art at The Met Museum
HOWARDENA PINDELL, Detail of “Oval Memory Series II: Castle Dragon,” 1980-81. LAST YEAR, ANDREA BOWERS was in conversation with Martha Rosler at the Dia Art Foundation. The two artists discussed “If You Lived Here…,” a project about homelessness and real estate in New York City Rosler presented at the Dia in 1989. Invited to...
Holiday Gift Guide 2017: 14 New Books for the Photography Lovers on Your List
EXCEPTIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS tell amazing stories. Through images by and about people of African descent, a number of recently published volumes further reveal the personalities, places, cultures and issues that have captured our imaginations and surface others largely overlooked. Must haves for the photography enthusiasts on your gift list, these titles span fine art, documentary, and...
