Supporting African American Art and Artists: Select African American Museums

This is the second of a four part series, focusing on ways to support African American art and artists. Part one in this series appeared on August 13, 2010 with an Addendum featured on July 8, 2012 . This current post focuses on a select group of museums and cultural centers whose missions strongly focus on African American visual arts. This is not a comprehensive list; only eight institutions, from across the country, are featured. However, it does begin a discussion to identify those institutions vying for financial support, gifts, and volunteer services. An effective starting point to identify an even larger number of these institutions begins with the Association of African American Museums (AAAM). Information on AAAM members is accessible by state from their web site. It is important to remember that all museums with a defined focus on African or African American art, history, and/or culture may not be members of the Association of African American Museums.

In order to remain viable and relevant during these critical economic times, these institutions need the collective support of all of us with an interest in African American art. As 2012 comes to a close, this is a great time to renew annual memberships or even consider an upgrade to the next level, perhaps giving a membership as a gift to a friend or relative, or even giving an outright gift to an institution.

Charlotte, North Carolina
The Harvey B. Gantt Center
for African-American Arts + Culture

The Harvey B. Gantt Center has a number of ways to become actively involved  with the Center through its various programs and services. Attending exhibitions and programs, making purchases in the museum shop, and hosting events in its space are a few of the more visible ways of supporting a museum. In addition, consider becoming a member or volunteering time.

The Harvey B. Gantt Center has five different membership levels that include unlimited free admission, private exhibition previews, discounts in the museum store, and the like. Also, there is a Gantt Center newsletter.

Membership is just one way to become involved as an active supporter of the Center. Membership levels begin with Senior Citizen/Student ($35.00) through Benefactor ($500.00). Other opportunities of becoming involved with the Gantt Center is through its Center Society, as a Collectors Circle ($1,000) or Founders Circle ($2,000) member; and becoming a Volunteer Ambassador.

As is the case for any of the museums in this post, one can simply make an outright contribution to support the museum's endeavors.   

Christopher Carter: Artist Talk

Christopher Carter, an artist from ricardogenzon on Vimeo.
This piece was produced for the California African American Museum's The Art of Christopher Carter exhibition (March 17 - May 15, 2011).

Sculptor           Artist           Wall Hangings          Rope

Found Objects         Poetic Images          Recycled Lumber

          Totemic Columns          Essence of Materials               

Select Upcoming African American Art Exhibitions: Highlights for 2013

This highlight features a few exhibitions that will be on view this coming year, 2013. Presenting the exhibitions as they approach their opening dates assures a freshness and currency of information for the visual art enthusiasts. A number of important traveling exhibitions from 2012 or earlier will still be on tour in 2013, and they are accessible from the sidebar of this Blog, Highlights of African American Exhibitions....  This sidebar is updated on a weekly basis by either adding newly discovered exhibitions or removing those that are approaching their expiration date. Its intent is to provide comprehensive coverage of current ongoing exhibitions on view for the current quarter of the year.


Black Art Project (BAP) welcomes any information or leads that you might have relating to Black art exhibitions, particularly regional exhibitions that are not traditionally marketed on a national scale. BAP will verify the accuracy of any information submitted. Thank you for any assistance that you provide.

 Belmont, California
Wiegand Gallery
Notre Dame de Namur University 

Mr. Imagination, Ghost Dress - 2000
Wire mesh, mother of pearl buttons - 48 x 36 x 36 inches
Created in 2011 for "The Roots of the Spirit" exhibition at L'Espace Re-Evolution, Venice, Italy.

The Roots of the Spirit: Lonnie Holley, Mr. Imagination, Charlie Lucas, Kevin Sampson will be on view at the Wiegand Gallery from September 15 to November 15, 2013. This exhibition was originally on view at L'Éspace Re-Evolution (Venice, Italy) where these four artists were invited by the American Folk Art Museum to exhibit during the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011.

Each of these artists "has acknowledged that divine intervention played an essential role in showing them their path. With the conviction of their African legacy, they began making art that honored their ancestors as an antidote to death and private grief. To witness Kevin Sampson’s shrines to deceased friends and relatives; the ancestor thrones of Lonnie Holley and Mr. Imagination; and Charlie Lucas’ metal sculptures that honor his grandparents by their material and method, is seeing through the eyes of the artists’ ancestors. Art is their testament to memory, healing and ultimately spiritual renewal."

Read more about these artists and view their works at The Roots of the Spirit.

Results of Swann's African-American Fine Art Sale 2290

Swann Auction Galleries' African-American Fine Art Sale 2290 on October 18, 2012 brought in $1,268,502 with buyer’s premium, falling short of its pre-sale low estimate of $2,098,200. Of the 154 lots that were offered at auction, 107 sold (69% sell-through rate by lot). According to Nigel Freeman, Director of African-American Fine Art at Swann Galleries, “Collectors sought out top-quality paintings by the masters. Norman Lewis and Henry Ossawa Tanner works brought high prices, in particular.”

The top 5 lots based on selling price with buyer's premium are as follows:

Lot 53, Charles White's Songs of Life, pen and ink on board, 1953-54 sold for $144,000 to a collector. Although this work passed the $100,000 mark, it did not reach its low estimate of $150,000.

Lot 34, Norman Lewis' Magenta Haze, oil on canvas, 1947 sold for $96,000 to a dealer.

Lot 41, Norman Lewis, Untitled (Circular Procession of Figures), oil on canvas, 1953 sold for $90,000 to a collector.  Of the top 5 lots, this is the only work that reached its high estimate ($75,000).

Lot 9, Henry Ossawa Tanner's Christ and Nicodemus (Early Study), oil on cardstock, circa 1923 sold for $90,000 to a collector.

Lot 8, Henry Ossawa Tanner's Flight Into Egypt, oil on wood panel, circa 1916-22 sold for $84,000 to a dealer.

Allan Rohan Crite, Douglass Square

In addition to the previously mentioned five lots, it is worth noting those artists who achieved an artist record in Sale 2290. Those four artists and their works follow: Allan Rohan Crite, Douglass Square ($36,000), Rex Goreleigh ($31,200), Richard Mayhew ($28,800), and Louis Delsarte ($24,000).

Rex Goreleigh, Spring Pruning

Richard Mayhew, Sacred Path    

Louis Delsarte, Reunion

Black Art Project (BAP) Booklist 4

This fourth list, in a continuing series, highlights recently published books that have an African American art focus. As stated in earlier releases,  identifying titles as they are recently published or in pre-publication status is crucial for those building a library that has some focus on African American art. Because of small print runs of these titles, it is advisable to purchase them shortly after they have been published to assure yourself that the titles that you are interested in have not gone out of print. When a title does go out of print, the secondary market becomes a viable option; however, you must then weigh cost and condition differences among the few dealers that may have a copy for sale.


The following post and the addendum of recent publications are simply a few new titles that have been released since the last Booklist:      

Image reproduced from Anthology.

Clifford Owens: Anthology is a forthcoming MoMA PS1 imprint that is scheduled for release on 11/30/12. Clifford Owens "has long been aware that the history of African-American art remains largely unwritten. Rather than rectifying the oversight in scholarly terms, Owens has created an unprecedented artistic project, a compendium of African-American performance art that is both highly personal and thoroughly historical."  

Anthology brings together final artworks (solicited from fellow African-American artists) that resulted from the performances at MoMA PS1. It will feature essays by art historians Huey Copeland, John Bowles, and MoMA PS1 assistant curator Christopher Y. Lew. Also included will be a round-table discussion with selected Anthology artists moderated by art historian Kellie Jones. 

(Image from Anthology: Senga Knight, 2011 (detail), 2 C-prints.)

Gary Simmons: Paradise is the first publication to offer a comprehensive overview of Simmons' multifarious career. A career that includes photographs, installations, sculpture, paintings, drawings, and public projects "exploring the visual language of our social and cultural landscape as they touch on symbols and themes that range from poetic longing to the vernacular of the inner city."

Paradise includes 150 reproductions with an introduction by Okwui Enwezor, and text by Gwen Allen, Nancy Princenthal, and Charles Wylie. To many of the readers, Simmons is identified with his wall drawings, or erasure drawings; this book shares the fuller scope of his body of works. On a personal level, Simmons' Duck, Duck, Noose was a visceral introduction to the 30 Americans exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery (Washington, DC); an installation that vividly brought to mind the theme of lynching and the abuse and murder that is associated with this crime. The image of the stools crowned with white hoods, encircling a hanging rope (noose) is still embedded in my memory... a powerful piece. 

Laylah Ali: The Greenhead Series is the first complete documentation of the Greenheads series by Ali, consisting of over 80 works. This is a catalogue accompanying The Greenhead Series exhibition presented by the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) on view through November 25, 2012. "Over forty of these exquisitely rendered gouache paintings—from a total of more than eighty—have been gathered from collections here and abroad to chronicle the series’ development."

"The WCMA exhibition will allow viewers to examine the evolution of Ali’s series. While the early paintings frequently focus on physically aggressive exchanges between groups of figures, these interactions are later replaced by individuals—alone or in small groups—who witness the prelude to, or aftermath of, a charged encounter. As the series continues, more and more of the figures’ anatomy is pruned away, as if the artist is examining how much can be taken out—such as arms, feet, skin color—while still communicating thought, emotion, and social status."

Laylah Ali: The Greenhead Series includes texts by art historian and critic Julia Bryan-Wilson, and poet Kevin Young, as well as an interview with the artist by curator Deborah Rothschild.

Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art is a catalogue which will accompany a forthcoming exhibition of the same title at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. The exhibition, which is organized by Senior Curator Valerie Cassel Oliver, will be on view November 17, 2012 through February 15, 2013.

 "This  publication provides a critical framework for discussing the history of black performance within the visual arts over the last 50 years." The exhibition will feature work by three generations of artists, including Benjamin Patterson, David Hammons, Lorraine O'Grady, Adrian Piper, Ulysses Jenkins, Carrie Mae Weems, William Pope.L, Terry Adkins, Lyle Ashton Harris, Clifford Owens, Sherman Fleming, Danny Tisdale, Kalup Linzy, Adam Pendleton, Derrick Adams, Dread Scott, Xaviera Simmons, among others. In addition, "the publication includes a DVD compilation of performance excerpts and is an essential tool for any understanding of the field."

Radical Presence includes an introduction and text by Valerie Cassel Oliver, foreword by Bill Arning, and text by Yona Backer and Naomi Beckwith.

Swann's African-American Fine Art (Sale 2290) catalogue documents the October 18, 2012 auction. The catalogue is arranged by lot number and features an image for each of the lots, including other pertinent information: artist, date of work, size, medium, provenance, where the work is signed and or dated, exhibition history, auction estimate, and etc.

Sale 2290 includes 154 lots in various media from many sought-after African-American artists, ranging from rare early 20th Century works through desirable contemporary pieces, including fine photographs. A short role call of artists included are as follows:  Beauford Delaney, Alvin Loving, Norman Lewis, Hale Woodruff, Dox Thrash, Robert Colescott, Allan Rohan Crite, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, Lois Mailou Jones, Rashid Johnson, Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Richard Mayhew, Richard Hunt, Jacob Lawrence, Robert S. Duncanson, Edward Bannister, Henry O. Tanner,  Eldzier Cortor, Sam Gilliam, Kara Walker, Hughie Lee-Smith, Benny Andrews, Charles White, Claude Clark, and others.

Swann Galleries African-American Fine Art Auction: Sale 2290

Swann Auction Galleries' African-American Fine Art Sale 2290 is scheduled for October 18, 2012. These biannual sales (February and October) have been growing over the years. Swann's first auction devoted entirely to African-American Fine Art was February 6, 2007, and many of us who have an interest in African American art/artists, either as viewers/observers or bidders, have come to expect a wide selection for our viewing or acquiring pleasure. There is a catalogue that accompanies each of the auctions, and it serves as historical documentation of the works sold, creating historical reference and provenance.

The market for modern and contemporary art continues to grow at a rapid pace; however, the actual number of artists that sell at high prices at auction is fairly small. Because of my interest in the works of African American artists, I am always concerned as to how successful their works fair in the auction setting, particularly as it compares with the larger field of American art. Regardless of selling price, one of the greatest benefits of these auctions has been the slow but progressive inclusion of African American art into auction data. 

According to Nigel Freeman, Director of African-American Fine Art at Swann Galleries, "Last year's sales met or exceeded expectations and that we're starting to see pre-recession numbers." I would tend to agree with Freeman's statements. The October 06, 2011 Sale was the most successful auction over the past three years (February 2009 to October 2011), bringing in $1,789,989 with Buyer's Premium, and selling approximately 75% of the lots.
 

Robert Duncanson, Young America

The following major highlights from Sale 2290 prove that substantial and importance pieces are steadily entering the art market. Robert Duncanson's Young America (1846), an oil on canvas, is a very scarce work from the beginning of his career and is the earliest painting in the Sale; its estimate is $50,000 to $75,000. "This unusual depiction of a heroic young man raising both sword and the American flag was possibly a commission by the subject's parents before the boy was sent off to fight in the Mexican-American War."

Eldzier Cortor, Classical Composition No. 4

Sale 2290 will offer two Eldzier Cortor paintings from important periods for the figurative artist. This is the first time that any works by Cortor have been featured in Swann's African-American Fine Art Auction. One of those works, Classical Composition, No. 4 (circa 1973), is a large impressive oil on canvas. It is the top lot and has an estimate of $200,000 to $250,000. Cortor is best known for elegant, elongated depictions of women that show the influences of his study of African sculpture, 19th Century French Painting, and his travels to the Sea Islands and the West Indies.
                 
                                         

Charles White, Songs  of Life

Charles White's Songs of Life (1953-54) is a tour de force in pen and ink. White used this drawing in his application for the John Hay Whitney Fellowship and it has not been exhibited since. White was one of the 27 African American recipients of a John Hay Whitney fellowship in 1955. His project under a Whitney Opportunity Fellowship was "to depict in a series of graphic prints, drawings, and paintings, the cultural meaning behind the spirituals, secular works, and blues song of the Negro people." Songs of Life is a recently discovered large and important drawing which has an auction estimate of $150,000 to $200,000. 

  

Norman Lewis, Magenta Haze

Three paintings from Norman Lewis' Abstract Expressionist period will be up for auction, including Magenta Haze (1947), one of his earliest abstract paintings to come to auction. This oil on canvas has an estimate of $60,000 to $90,000.

Elizabeth Catlett, The Co-Founder Award

Elizabeth Catlett's The Co-Founder Award, cast bronze (circa 1995) has an estimate of $10,000 to $15,000.

This post has featured only a few artists and select works in Swann's African-American Fine Art Sale scheduled for October 18, 2012. In addition to the fine  art artists and their works represented here, Sale 2290 will include works by Henry Ossawa Tanner, Hughie Lee Smith, Romare Bearden, Hale Woodruff, William Edouard Scott, Thelma Johnson Streat, and others.

See the Online African-American Fine Art catalogue.

Smithsonian American Art Museum: Highlights from Art Inventories Catalog

Over the past years, I have become familiar with the breadth and scope of the Smithsonian Institution, and have worked extensively with the rich holdings that are a part of the Smithsonian American Art/National Portrait Gallery (AA/PG) Library, particularly delving into its books, catalogues, and ephemeral collections. As a whole, this institution is essential because of its role in identifying, collecting, and making materials accessible not only for their staff, but for researchers, appraisers, students, artists, the layman, and other interested individuals from across the country, and on an international level. Through their art collections, archival materials, and print collections, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and its various support units play a crucial role in documenting African American artists in the broader context of American art. Simply, the breadth and depth of their collections serve as a resource, either documenting African Americans as a subject or the contributions of African American artists. They do not stand alone in this effort, but this post focuses on the highlights from one of The Smithsonian American Art Museum's research databases-- "the Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture which provides descriptive data on over 400,000 art works done by artists born or working in this country."

"The Inventory of American Paintings includes works by artists who were active in America by 1914. The Inventory of American Sculpture has no cut-off date and includes works from the colonial era through contemporary times. These online databases are supplemented by a photographic collection of over 80,000 images."   This database includes African American highlights that may be seen at the following link: Art Inventories Catalog of Smithsonian American Art Museum.

In an upcoming post, I will feature the results from an on-going and extensive project that I have been involved with at the AA/PG Library's vertical file, a rich ephemeral resource. This project has been directly related to African American artists and their inclusion in the vertical file collection of the Smithsonian American Art/National Portrait Gallery Library.