The cover for the New Yorker’s new fiction issue is illustrated by Loveis Wise. THE LATEST EDITION of The New Yorker features a black mother and child on the cover. The image by Loveis Wise illustrates the magazine’s new Fiction Issue, a double issue dated June 4 and June 11. Wise, who graduated from...
Born in Havana, Cuba, Ricardo Brey lives and works in Ghent, Belgium. | Courtesy Alexander Grey Associates MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTIST Ricardo Brey has joined Alexander Gray Associates in New York. Brey’s research-oriented practice explores the roots of who we are—the origins of humanity, the intersection of nature and culture, and how we understand our place...
NEWS | Seven members have resigned from the DuSable Museum of African American History board of trustees in Chicago. The departures include the chair and two vice chairs. The following review of the past week or so presents a snapshot of the latest news in African American art and related culture: NEWS Seven...
WATCH The sale of Mark Bradford’s “Speak, Birdman” (2018) to benefit the Studio Museum in Harlem’s new building fund. Bids started at $1.6 million and quickly climbed to $5.8 million, the hammer price, which amounted to $6,776,200 with fees. | Video by Sotheby’s FIFTY YEARS AFTER AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTISTS played a prominent role in...
“Bush Babies” (2017) by Njideka Akunyili Crosby. THE AUCTION PRICE FOR A PAINTING by Njideka Akunyili Crosby climbed a bit higher last week. “Bush Babies” by the Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist sold for nearly $3.4 million including fees at Sotheby’s New York, a new artist record. Her previous high was just north of $3...
A STRIKING PORTRAIT of a statuesque woman named Brenda P set a new auction record for Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017) on Wednesday at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction in New York. The 1974 painting sold for $2.1 million including fees, which was twice the high estimate and shattered the artist’s previous high, which was...
A GRAND-SCALE PAINTING by Kerry James Marshall had bidders battling last night. Marshall’s “Past Times” (1997) soared beyond the high estimate and sold for $18.5 million ($21.1 million, including fees). The high bid came by phone, setting an artist record. The painting was featured in Sotheby’s May 16 Contemporary Art Evening Auction and carried...
Sam Gilliam’s 1969 painting, “Light Depth” will be added to the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. | Courtesy Corcoran Collection THE REMAINING ART from the Corcoran Gallery of Art has been distributed. More than 10,750 works were given away. Nearly all of it went to 22 institutions in Washington, D.C. The...
Lot 3: LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE, “An Assistance of Amber,” 2017 (oil on linen). | Estimate $100,000-$150,000. Sold for $555,000 including fees THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM and Sotheby’s are collaborating on a major sale of works by some of the most prominent and critically recognized artists of African descent working today. Artists including Mark Bradford,...
“Benyam” (2018) by Jordan Casteel DENVER-BORN Jordan Casteel‘s hometown museum is hosting her first major museum show. “Jordan Casteel: Returning the Gaze,” an exhibition of nearly 30 paintings, opens at the Denver Art Museum (DAM) in February 2019. Recognized for her large-scale painted portraits of black men, Casteel lives and works in Harlem,...
Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle is among the artists profiled in the documentary “Artist and Mother.” | Video by KCET DOES MOTHERHOOD ALTER an artist’s practice or change her work and approach to creativity? It’s a question rarely discussed publicly that a new documentary takes on and addresses directly. “You have very significant successful artists and...
Gail Anderson of New York received the Cooper Hewitt Design Award for Lifetime Achievement. | Photo by Declan Van Welie; Paris-based Kapwani Kiwanga won the first Frieze Artist Award in New York. | Photo by Bertille-Chérot The following review of the past week or so presents a snapshot of the latest news in African...
A SELECTION OF PAINTINGS OF WOMEN IN WHITE is displayed in the American Galleries in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Portraits by artists including Gilbert Stuart, Cecilia Beaux, Whistler, George Bellows, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent are among the group. Stuart’s rendering of Catherine Brass Yates...
A WISE AND SEASONED arbiter of style, André Leon Talley has been cutting a fabulous figure in the fashion world for more than 40 years. Before he became a fixture at Vogue, he worked at Andy Warhol’s Factory, volunteered with Diana Vreeland at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, and did stints at...
KADIR NELSON, “Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine,” 2017 (oil on linen). | Collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift from Kadir Nelson and the JKBN Group LLC CERVICAL CANCER CLAIMED THE LIFE of Henrietta Lacks (1920-1951), an African American woman who...
“Untitled (Horserace),” (circa 1981?) by Wadsworth Jarrell. BEYOND THE INFLUENTIAL REALM of major auction houses in art centers such as New York, London, and Hong Kong, and even Los Angeles and Chicago, there are hundreds of smaller, longstanding local businesses selling second-hand valuables, from antique furniture, watches, and china to fine art. In the...
GLENN LIGON, “Condition Report,” 2000 THE MISSISSIPPI MUSEUM OF ART in Jackson, Miss., is encouraging constructive conversations about racial equity through contemporary art. A slate of new acquisitions, including works by African American artists Glenn Ligon, Benny Andrews (1930-2006), and McArthur Binion, a native of Macon, Miss., supports the museum’s commitment to engaging the...
EMERITUS PROFESSOR Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017) received the inaugural President’s Award for Creative Impact from Connecticut College on May 2. He was among five faculty members recognized by President Katherine Bergeron for demonstrating excellence and innovation in research, teaching and leadership. Hendricks is the first to be honored with the new Impact award which...
WINOLD REISS, “Harlem Girl with Blanket,” circa 1925 FORTY WORKS BY A HARLEM LEGEND are on view in midtown Manhattan. “Winold Reiss Will Not Be Classified” at Hirschl & Adler gallery presents works spanning the German American artist’s four-decade career. Weinold Reiss (1886–1953) was variously considered an artist, designer, illustrator, architect, printmaker, and muralist....
CHARLES WHITE, “Love Letter,” 1971 SHORTLY AFTER ‘CHARLES WHITE: A RETROSPECTIVE’ opens at the Art Institute of Chicago, a 2019 wall calendar will be released featuring his work. Published by Pomegranate in collaboration with the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), the African American art calendar features Charles White‘s “Love Letter” (1971) on the...
Fresh Out of Graduate School, Christine Sun Kim Helped to Greatly Improve Experiences of Deaf Audiences at the Whitney Museum
Jun 24, 2025
American Sign Language Videos Explore Whitney Museum’s Collection, Including Works by Simone Leigh, Archibald Motley, Diedrick Brackens, Jacob Lawrence & More
Jun 24, 2025
Picturing Freedom: Exhibition and Pulitzer Prize-Winning Book Shed Light on Harriet Tubman’s Greatest Feat, Liberating More than 700 in Combahee River Raid
Jun 19, 2025
On View: ‘Jack Whitten: The Messenger’ at Museum of Modern Art in New York is First Full Retrospective of Pioneering Artist
Jun 17, 2025
Brittany Webb is Joining Museum of Fine Arts, Houston as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art: ‘There is A Lot That Attracted Me to the MFAH’
Jun 13, 2025
