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Drawn from the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, these works range in style from modern abstraction to stained color to the postmodern assemblage of found objects, and their subjects are diverse. Benny Andrews, Ellis Wilson, and William H. Johnson speak to the dignity and resilience of people who work the land. Jacob Lawrence and Thornton Dial, Sr. acknowledge the struggle for economic and civil rights. Sargent Johnson, Loïs Mailou Jones, and Melvin Edwards address the heritage of Africa, and images by Romare Bearden celebrate jazz musicians. Sam Gilliam and Felrath Hines conduct innovative experiments with color and form. This will be the only New York venue for the exhibition.

The featured artworks were created at significant social and political moments in America. Words of Howard University philosophy professor Alain Locke, novelist James Baldwin, Civil Rights leader Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and their contemporaries provided insight and inspiration. In response, these artists created an image of America that recognizes individuals and community and acknowledges the role of art in celebrating the complex and diverse nature of American society. As featured artist Jacob Lawrence stated in 1951, “My pictures express my life and experience . . . the things I have experienced extend to my national, racial, and class group. I paint the American scene.”

The related catalog, African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond, celebrates modern and contemporary artworks in the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection by African American artists. The book, co-published with Skira Rizzoli in New York, is written by Richard J. Powell, the John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University; and Virginia Mecklenburg, chief curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum; with contributions from Maricia Battle, curator in the prints and drawings division at the Library of Congress.

African American Art in the 20th Century is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The C.F. Foundation in Atlanta supports the museum’s traveling exhibition program, Treasures to Go. The William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment Fund provided financial suppor

Labyrinth of Forms: Women and Abstraction, 1930–1950
Oct 9, 2021–Mar 2022
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During the 1930s and 1940s, abstraction began to gain momentum as an exciting, fresh approach to modern artmaking in the United States, and a small contingent of American artists dedicated themselves to it. Labyrinth of Forms, a title inspired by an Alice Trumbull Mason work in the exhibition, alludes to the sense of discovery that drove these artists to establish a visual language reflecting the advances of the twentieth century.

A significant number of American abstractionists were women, and their efforts propelled the formal, technical, and conceptual evolution of abstract art in this country. A few, such as Lee Krasner and Louise Nevelson, have been duly recognized, but most remain overlooked despite their contributions. With over thirty works by twenty-seven artists drawn almost entirely from the Whitney’s collection, Labyrinth of Forms highlights both the achievements of these artists and the ways in which works on paper served as sites for important exploration and innovation.

While abstraction would prevail in the United States after World War II, in the preceding decades American abstractionists were vastly outnumbered by realist practitioners. Maligned by critics, and largely ignored by museums and galleries, these artists nevertheless saw themselves as aesthetic revolutionaries. In contrast to their European counterparts, who were often involved with movements defined by manifestos, they felt free to experiment, harnessing a broad range of styles to express the mood of the modern United States.

Buoyed by modernist art courses and new venues for viewing European avant-garde art, they forged a network of overlapping communities, organizations, and creative spaces—including the American Abstract Artists and the Atelier 17 print studio—that allowed them to support one another, exchange ideas, and exhibit their work. Women were key figures in such groups, often taking on leadership roles. They also wrote and lectured on abstraction and advanced methods of making, particularly in print media. Though many of these artists still deserve wider acclaim, their influence and ideas resonate even today.

This exhibition is organized by Sarah Humphreville, Senior Curatorial Assistant.

CollectionTalk: Jill Nathanson and Karen Wilkin
October 26, 2021
5:30 pm CT

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Comparisons between color-field painters Jill Nathanson (born 1955 and Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) come naturall, although each is undeniably her own person—and her artwork is uniquely remarkable.

Save the date October 26th at 5:30 pm CT for a cocktail-hour zoom with Jill nathanson and author, curator, and historian Karen Wilkin. Join us for a discussion that will surely cover Sheldon's recent acquisition of Nathanson's painting, Cantabile, and the common ground she shared with Helen Frankenthaler.

To attend, RSVP to Laurel Ybarra at laurel.ybarra@unl.edu or 402.472.1454

Exuberance: Dialogues in African-American Abstract Painting
Curated by Susan Zurbrigg and Beth Hinderlitter
Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia
October 26 - December 10, 2021

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The upcoming exhibition at Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art, Exuberance: Dialogues in African American Abstract Painting, celebrates African American painters and challenges received narratives about abstract art and who makes it. Abstract paintings by African American artists have often been overlooked and omitted from the history of art presented by white scholars and white dominated art institutions, yet their works have contributed powerfully to the field of painting. This focused presentation of paintings will feature works from the 1950s to present day, forging cross-generational dialogues about racial identity, dynamics of color and pattern, as well as rhythm, movement, and breath.

Featured artists include Charles Burwell, Nanette Carter, Lisa Corinne Davis, Lamerol Gatewood, Rico Gatson, Felrath Hines, Norman Lewis, Erika Ranee, Ronald Walton, Benjamin Wigfall and Susan Zurbrigg. Lenders to the exhibition include the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, the Ackland Museum of Art at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Berry Campbell Gallery, Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Jenkins Johnson Gallery New York and San Francisco, Miles McEnery Gallery and Walton Gallery.

Public programming will include a discussion on November 10, 5p of the history and politics of African American painting led by Dr. Jordana Saggese, Associate Professor at the University of Maryland and award-winning author of Reading Basquiat: Exploring Ambivalence in American Art. Contributing artist Lisa Corinne Davis will offer an online artist talk on Nov. 16 at 5pm. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue, with scholarly essays and selected bibliography.

Exuberance is co-curated by Susan Zurbrigg and Beth Hinderliter. Susan Zurbrigg is a nationally exhibited artist, educator and activist. She is Assistant Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at JMU as well as a Professor of Art. Dr. Beth Hinderliter is Director of the Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art and an Associate Professor of Art History.  Her book, More Than Our Pain: Affect and Emotion in the Era of Black Lives Matter, was published by SUNY Press in 2021.

Contact Beth Hinderliter, director of the Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art, at (540) 568-6407 or by email at hindersb@jmu.edu for more information or to schedule a group visit.

Sunday, October 10, 2021
2 - 3 pm

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Inspired by the powerful works of artists John Sims, Mike Solomon, and Kirk Ke Wang on view in Skyway 20/21: A Contemporary Collaboration, the museum is proud to host this meaningful community discussion on the impact current and historical racial trauma.

Interior designer and art advisor Elena Frampton is the founder and principal of Frampton Co. With locations in New York City and Bridgehampton, the firm designs and creates interior experiences, specializing in interior architecture, design and art advisement. Elena’s design approach is instinctual from the get-go. She reads a client’s latent desires for their space, bringing to life environments that they themselves didn’t yet know they wanted. Elena’s work gives shape and feeling to visions for where and how we live

5. Berry Campbell
One of my go-to galleries in New York City is Berry Campbell – great art works, friendly atmosphere and an inspiring robust program! The gallery champions female painters like Yvonne Thomas, Perle Fine and Judith Godwin, giving women artists long overdue consideration on the market. They also represent a diverse range of works with something for everyone: from minimalist Walter Darby Bannard, to the more expressive William Perehudoff, to the very geometric Ken Greenleaf. I can also spend forever perusing their online inventory – a convenience especially now.

"Point of Departure,” the fall’s major exhibition at Sheldon Museum of Art, takes its name from a 1964 album by jazz pianist Andrew Hill, a recording that reaches back toward Bach, but nearly 60 years after it was recorded, continues to point to the future.

In similar fashion, the paintings that fill Sheldon’s north galleries reach back to a point just after abstraction’s mid-20th century peak and take non-objective painting forward for six decades, pointing toward what is yet to come.

Impressively, the visually striking, intellectually and historically rich exhibition is primarily drawn from Sheldon’s collection of 20th and 21st century art that is unmatched by any other university museum in the country.

“We have so much abstraction and we’re well known for abstraction, starting in 1910,” said Wally Mason, Sheldon’s director and chief curator. “We shifted from abstract painting to abstract sculpture during George's (Neubert) tenure. But we always acquired some. In my time, this is something we’re continuing to do.”

In using 1958 as its starting date, Mason, who curated the exhibition, ensured that “Point of Departure” would include little work from the “first generation” of abstract expressionists, excluding oft-seen Sheldon gems by Mark Rothko, Willem deKooning, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still and Robert Motherwell. Read More