Selection of Upcoming Art Talks: Highlighting Black Art or Artists

Atlanta, Georgia

Michael C. Carlos Museum

Tuesday, April 21, 2015 | 7:30 - 8:30 p.m. | Reception Hall, Level Three

Mildred Thompson (American, 1936-2003), 1989
The Second Mystery, Etching, Artist's Proof
Lent by Wes and Missy Cochran

"In a program titled Let’s Talk About Mildred, collectors Wes and Missy Cochran join curator of the Mildred Thompson estate, Melissa Messina, and Carlos Museum Associate Curator of Works on Paper, Andi McKenzie, for a conversation about the life and work of artist Mildred Thompson, whose prints are featured in the exhibition Creating Matter."   

Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham Museum of Art

Kelli Morgan, Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Curatorial Fellow
of African American Art 

Lecture: Decoding Black Art: Rising Up: Hale Woodruff's Murals at Talladega College
Sunday, June 21, 2015 | 2 - 3 p.m.

"Join Kelli Morgan, Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Curatorial Fellow of African American Art at the BMA, for a lecture series on African American art. The series will analyze and illuminate important works of African American art within the Museum’s permanent collection. All lectures are free and open to the public.

Kelli will discuss Rising Up: Hale Woodruff’s Murals at Talladega College."

Cambridge, Massachusetts
The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery
 of African and African American Art at the Hutchins Center

Sunday Afternoon at the Cooper Gallery

In Conversation: Steven Nelson and Abigail DeVille 

Sunday, April 12, 2015 | 2 p.m. | 102 Mount Auburn Street

Steven Nelson, Associate Professor of African and African American Art History, University of California, Los Angeles; Cohen Fellow at the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute, Hutchins Center, Harvard University.

Abigail DeVille, Independent Artist; Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.

Chicago, Illinois

Chicago Cultural Center

Gallery Talk: Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist

Tuesday, April 14 and Tuesday, June 9, 2015 | 12:15 p.m. | Sidney R. Yates Gallery, 4th Floor North

The themes of Motley's work—identity, migration and social change—will be central to the discussion. 

Columbus, Ohio

The Ohio State University,

Department of African American and African Studies

Artist Talk:  Art as Resistance: Emory Douglas, Minister of Culture for The Black Panther Movement 

Thursday, April 16, 2015 | 4:30 - 6 p.m. | Barnett Collaboratory, Sullivant Hall 141

Registration

Emory Douglas, Artist

"Emory Douglas will deliver a lecture along with a power point presentation related to his graphic artwork during 1960s and 1970s Black Panther Party era, when he served as the Minister of Culture and Revolutionary Artist. He will also showcase some of his more recent work, putting into context the social and political importance of the artwork being displayed." The event being produced in conjunction with: Department of African American and African Studies, Barnett Center for Integrated Art and Enterprise, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Office of Student Life, Department of Art and the Department of English.

East Lansing, Michigan

Michigan State University

Lecture: Mickalene Thomas

Monday, April 27, 2015 | 7 p.m. | S. Kedzie Hall, 107

"The paintings of Mickalene Thomas combine iconic images of African American women alongside the classic genre of portraiture.  Drawing on art history and popular culture, her monumental works consider the relationship between black female sexuality, beauty, and power.  Her work is represented in the collections of the Guggenheim, Whitney, MoMA, and many others." Free and open to the public.

Hanover, New Hampshire 

Hood Museum of Art

Dartmouth College 

Artist Lecture: Victor Ekpuk: Excavating Memories

Friday, April 24, 2015| 4:30 p.m.  
 

Victor Ekpuk. Composition No. 13 (Sante Fe Suite),2013
Graphic and pastel on paper
Courtesy of the artist. © Victor Ekpuk

Victor Ekpuk will discuss how he mines historical, cultural, and social memories to shape his aesthetics.  

 Hartford, Connecticut

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

Contemporary Art Series: Hank Willis Thomas: History Doesn't Laugh

Wednesday, May 6, 2015 | 6 p.m.

Hank Willis Thomas, Basketball and Chain, 2003, digital c-print photograph, 

Gift of Jean Crutchfield and Robert Hobbs 

in honor of Susan Talbott, 2014.14.1

"One of the most provocative and innovative conceptual artists of today, Hank Willis Thomas discusses the impact of photography on his work and explores how the concepts of spectacle and display connect to notions of African American identity and commodification."

Los Angeles, California

Hammer Museum, UCLA

Panel Discussion: A History of Refusal: Black Artists and Conceptualism

Wednesday, May 20, 2015 | 7:30 p.m.

"This panel explores the politics and legacy of African American artists, both of Charles Gaines’s generation and after, who use strategies of conceptual art to investigate identity, representation, and American culture. The panel also considers the impact of past exhibitions that examined black conceptual practices and questioned what constitutes a “black aesthetic.” With speakers Thelma Golden, director and chief curator, the Studio Museum in Harlem; Hamza Walker, associate curator and director of education, The Renaissance Society, Chicago; and artist Rodney McMillian."   

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Lecture: Norman Lewis: Abstracting African American Art

Tuesday, April 21, 2015 | 12 - 1 p.m.

"Norman Lewis (1909-1979) was among the earliest African American artists to explore abstraction. Ruth Fine, Independent Curator and former Curator of Special Projects in Modern Art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., provides a preview of PAFA’s fall 2015 exhibition, Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis, examining the parallel courses of his abstract and figurative motifs."

San Francisco

Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum

Docent Lecture: An African American Experience, by Sharon Walton

Sunday, April 26, 2015 | 2:15 p.m.

"This lecture reflects upon personal, national, and collective African American experiences and illustrates how they have influenced American art."

Waltham, Massachusetts

Rose Art Museum, Brandeis Museum

Artist Lecture: Melvin Edwards

Friday, April 17, 2015 | 1:30 - 2:45 p.m.

Melvin Edwards

"Pioneering African American artist Melvin Edwards will join Brandeis Professor Chad Williams (Chair of African and Afro-American Studies) and Christopher Bedford (Henry and Lois Foster Director of the Rose Art Museum) for a conversation in front of sculptures from Edwards’s “Lynch Fragments” series, currently on display as part of the Rose Art Museum’s presentation of new acquisitions."

Swann Galleries African-American Fine Art Auction: Sale 2303

The upcoming African-American Fine Art Sale 2203 at Swann Auction Galleries is scheduled for Thursday, February 14, 2013. For Swann Galleries, this auction marks the fourteenth sale, over the past several years, that has had an African-American art focus. Sale 2303 includes many works by artists who rose to prominence in the 1960s and 70s, including Barkley Hendricks and William T. Williams, among others. Nigel Freeman, Director of African American Fine Art at Swann Auction Galleries, noted that Swann, "in addition to being the only auction house to feature regular sales of African American Fine Art, stands out as a leader in the sale of material by this 'Second Generation' of artists, who followed the Harlem Renaissance."

As in the past, the sale will include paintings, sculptures, and prints. Highlights include Barkley Hendricks’ The Hawk, Blah, Blah, Blah, a painting from the artist’s first solo show in 1971. It has an estimate of $75,000 – $100,000.

Barkley L. Hendricks, The Hawk, Blah, Blah, Blah, Oil and Dayglo on canvas, 1970.
Image: Swann Auction Galleries

William T. Williams' Up Balls, an acrylic on canvas, a bold composition from 1971 has an estimate of $75,000 –  $100,000. It is only the second painting by the artist to come to auction; see Eastern Star, the artist's first painting in auction, that appeared in Sale 2268 (Lot 141, February 16, 2012, sold for $120,000). 

William T. Williams, Up Balls, Acrylic on canvas, 1971. Image: Swann Auction Galleries

 

This African-American Fine Art sale also features a significant group of works sold by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for the benefit of the collection, including works by Charles Alston, Richmond Barthé, Beauford Delaney, Norman Lewis, Laura Wheeler Waring, and Charles White. A sample from this collection includes Meeting Place by Norman Lewis and Trumpet Player by Charles White. Meeting Place which is the first Norman Lewis WPA-era oil painting to come to auction has an estimate of $150,000 – $200,000. Charles White’s Trumpet Player, a 1959-1960 charcoal and gouache drawing, has an auction estimate of $100,000 – $150,000. Images of Meeting Place and Trumpet Player follow.
 

Norman Lewis, Meeting Place, Oil on canvas, 1941. Image: Swann Auction Galleries

  

Charles White, Trumpet Player, 

Charcoal and gouache on board, 1959-60

Image: Swann Auction Galleries 

Sale 2303 will close with an exceptional group of prints by the late Elizabeth Catlett that includes a scarce, complete set of the 14 linoleum cuts that are a part of the I am the Black Woman series. This is the first time that the complete group has appeared in auction, and they have an auction estimate of $75,000 - $100,000. 

Here is the link to the online version of the catalogue for the upcoming African-American Fine Art Sale 2303.  


As a reminder regarding bidding information, you do not have to be present at the auction to bid. Bids may be placed in advance via telephone, fax, mail, or email, and Swann's staff will bid on your behalf if you can not attend the sale in-person. Also, you may make advance arrangements to bid live by telephone during the auction. To make bidding arrangements, contact Swann Galleries at 212-254-4710.