Kerry James Marshall previews his new exhibition “Mastry” at MCA Chicago. | Photo by Victoria L. Valentine CHICAGO — TWO PAINTINGS MARKED A TURNING POINT for Kerry James Marshall. Complete with Royal Crown Dressing hair pomade, a Zenith radio, and a business license with the first dollar made tucked into the frame, “De Style,”...
David Krut Projects is showing Aida Muluneh’s work at the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in New York (May 6-8, 2916). WHEN “THE DIVINE COMEDY: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists” opened last year at the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., for the first time in the Smithsonian...
CRITICALLY RECOGNIZED ARTIST Mark Bradford will represent the United States at the 57th Venice Biennale next year. Bradford creates large-scale, abstract paintings, mixed-media works that explore a range of social justice issues. He will create a new site-specific installation for the U.S. Pavilion. The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs...
KNOWN FOR HIS CONCEPTUAL APPROACH to abstraction, painter Jack Whitten has joined Hauser & Wirth. The New York gallery announced its worldwide representation of the artist on Friday. The news follows the first exhibition to span his entire career. “Jack Whitten: Five Decades of Painting” was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, San...
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED museum exhibitions of the season, a major survey of Kerry James Marshall‘s work, primarily focused on his painting over the past 35 years, is opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, on April 23. In September, the exhibition will travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York...
Embed from Getty Images CONSIDERED ON OF THE MOST influential photographers of his time, Malick Sidibé has died at age 80. For more than half a century, the Malian photographer documented the post-independence cultural transformation in his native country. He was recognized for his legendary studio portraits and dynamic street shots, bringing Mali’s people...
IN 1932, IF YOU WERE LOOKING for an uptown night club or speakeasy that was open all night, an illustrated map by E. Simms Campbell (1906-1971) would have been a valuable resource. Today, it is a valuable treasure. The original artwork for the map sold for $100,000 (including fees) at the Printed and Manuscript African...
YADDO IS HONORING one of its own. The third annual Yaddo Artist Medal will be presented to sculptor Martin Puryear (above), who has deep connections with the artist community. The medal “recognizes individuals who have sustained a high level of achievement in their artistic discipline and reinforced the sense of community that is central...
At Ryan Lee Gallery, EMMA AMOS, “Seated Figure and Nude,” 1966 (oil on canvas). | Photo by Victoria L. Valentine AT THE REAR OF RYAN LEE GALLERY in New York, a 1966 painting by Emma Amos casually sits on the floor leaning against the wall between works by other gallery artists. Blending figuration and...
New York sculptor Inge Hardison died March 23, 2016, at age 102. | Video by D Scanlon Video A TRUE RENAISSANCE WOMAN, sculptor Inge Hardison (1914-2016) was also a photographer, poet and actress. The New York Daily News published an article announcing her death today, reporting that she died on March 23 “after a...
AN INFLUENTIAL FIGURE IN THE ART WORLD, Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem is expanding her institutional reach to the West Coast. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) announced the election of three new members to its board of trustees today, including Golden. Caroline Grainge and Soumaya...
EXPLORING RACE, REPRESENTATION AND PERFORMANCE, there is a certain something about the portraits painted by Baltimore artist Amy Sherald. Painted in grayscale, the bodies of her subjects are absent of color. Everything else in the large-scale fantastical portraits of African Americans—their distinctive clothing and the background against which they are set—celebrates color. The Smithsonian...
“HOW DO YOU PAINT YOUR SLAVE?” artist Julie Mehretu wonders. She is looking at “Juan de Pareja,” a 1650 oil on canvas by Spanish painter Velázquez (1599–1660). She describes it as portrait of a black man with copper skin and brown eyes. “He was one of his primary assistants and he was his slave… The...
LONG OVERDUE, THE COLORFUL AND EXPRESSIVE abstract works of Alma Thomas (1891-1978), pictured above, are being celebrated with a groundbreaking retrospective at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College in upstate New York. This summer, Thomas’s first solo museum exhibition since 2001 will travel to the Studio Museum in Harlem, which is co-organizing the show....
THERE IS A ROOM FULL of Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) prints on view at Weschler’s Auctioneers and Appraisers. The Washington, D.C., auction house is exhibiting the works in advance of its African American art sale on Feb. 26. The majority of the lots up for bid are from the collection of Rev. Douglas E. Moore...
A CENTURY IN THE MAKING, when the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) opens on Sept. 24, a major section of the fourth floor will be devoted to visual art. Exhibitions throughout the rest of the museum will examine in depth the experiences of African Americans, stories central to the...
RECREATING SIGNATURE IMAGES from African American artists Aaron Douglas and William H. Johnson, the latest edition of The New Yorker pays tribute to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The Feb. 22 cover by Los Angeles-based illustrator Kadir Nelson is an ensemble image featuring Harlem’s towering figures of the arts and letters,...
Naima Keith, who served as an associate curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, has joined the California African American Museum in Los Angeles. MEDIA REPORT CITES recently published news and features from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to read and explore: Harlem’s Studio Museum Curator Naima...
COME SPRING, VISITORS TO WASHINGTON, D.C.’s National Gallery of Art will have the opportunity to view “Portrait of My Grandmother,” by Archibald Motley (1891-1981). The 1922 painting was Motley’s favorite. In Southern California, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is presenting another family portrait. Motley’s “Uncle Bob” (1928) is expected to be...
BOOK REPORT CHARTS recently published art books. Among these six new titles, a number accompany exhibitions of work by African American artists including Norman Lewis, Kerry James Marshall, and Mickalene Thomas. A scholarly study investigates the life and work of early 20th century painter Horace Pippin. “Suffering and Sunset: World War I in the...
On View: ‘Paris Noir’ Exhibition at Centre Pompidou ‘Retraces the Presence and Influence of Black Artists in France from 1950s to 2000’
Jun 29, 2025
On View: ‘Michael Armitage: Crucible,’ Paintings by Kenyan British Artist Explore Migration at David Zwirner in New York
Jun 27, 2025
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
