Read all about this amazing cover here. How many of the faces can you name?

Sam Gilliam in Augusta, GA

Internationally-known contemporary painter and sculptor Sam Gilliam will be in Augusta Feb. 26 for the Morris Museum of Art’s Terra Cognita lecture series. He will talk about his life and career with MMA director Kevin Grogan in a program that begins at 6 p.m. An informal reception will follow.
“Sam Gilliam took traditional painting out of its traditional structure,” Mr. Grogan said. “He literally took it off the wall and out into the same space that we occupy.”
Born in Tupelo, Miss., in 1933, Mr. Gilliam grew up in Kentucky, earning an M.A. in painting at the University of Louisville. In 1962 he arrived in Washington, D.C. in the second wave of Washington color school painters. From his “draped” canvas paintings of the 1970s to his cut metal or wooden shaped works in the 1980s and 90s, to more recent works painted on plywood with wooden attachments, Mr. Gilliam gives equal importance to color and structure. His art continues to evolve as he experiments with rich saturated colors and expressive explorations of the painted surface.
Augusta’s museum-goers will remember seeing his work last spring in the group exhibition “Something to Look Forward To: Abstract Art by Distinguished Americans of African Descent.”

Read the Rest of the Story Here.

RIP J. Max Bond, Jr.

NEW YORK—Pioneering African-American architect J. Max Bond Jr. died on February 18 of cancer, the New York Times reports. He was 73. Bond was known for making his way in a white-dominated field and for being an educator and a socially conscious architect. In his early career, he worked in France with André Wogenscky, in New York at Gruzen & Partners and Pedersen & Tilney, and in Ghana, for the government from 1964 to 1967. He returned to New York to lead the Architects Renewal Committee of Harlem before founding the firm Bond Ryder & Associates in 1970, which 20 years later merged with another firm to become David Brody Bond Aedas. Among his most notable projects were the Martin Luther king Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama, and the Audubon Biomedical Science and Technology Park for Columbia University. He served on the New York City Planning Commission in the '80s, and taught at City College and Columbia. At the time of his death, he was the partner in charge of the museum portion of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center.

Read the Rest of the Story Here.

A Display of Black Power

That's what it looks like anyway, at Hemphill Fine Arts, where "Selections From the Barnett-Aden Collection: A Homecoming Celebration" is on view. The art on the walls -- by Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, John N. Robinson, Aaron Douglas, Alma Thomas, Henry O. Tanner, Elizabeth Catlett, John Biggers and others -- makes for a virtual who's who of 20th-century black art. None of it is for sale. Yet this contemporary commercial gallery setting really does feel like a homecoming.
That's because, despite the museum-caliber work on view, the show has its roots in another commercial Washington gallery. Albeit one that many have never heard of.
Founded in 1943 in a private home in Northeast Washington, the now-defunct Barnett-Aden Gallery was a collaboration between the late James Herring, a Howard University professor of art, and the late Alonzo Aden, a student of Herring's and curator of the school's art gallery. It was named after Naomi Barnett-Aden, Alonzo's mother and the owner of the house at 127 Randolph St. At a time of widespread segregation, the gallery gave a home to African American artists, many of whom could not exhibit elsewhere.

Link to the Original Story Here.

Black heritage Art Show in Baltimore

Artists and craftspeople from around the country will gather at the Baltimore Convention Center this weekend for the 14th annual Black Heritage Art Show, which celebrates African-American culture in a wide range of expressions.Since it began in the Fellowship Hall of Baltimore's New Psalmist Baptist Church in 1995, when six artists attracted several hundred patrons, the event has grown into a three-day event that draws thousands of visitors and showcases more than 100 visual, literary and performing artists, including musicians, poets, dancers and fashion designers.Visual artists range from painters, sculptors and lithographers to makers of jewelry, ceramics and handmade dolls. Maryland Institute College of Art graduate Larry "Poncho" Brown and Baltimore native Karen Buster are among the exhibitors. Out-of-town artists include Stu McLean of Atlanta and Charles Bibbs of Los Angeles.Events include a silent auction that will benefit an African-American scholarship fund; a line dancing party with Randy Dennis; "empowering" workshops; an "artist spotlight competition"; and a fashion show featuring the work of Baltimore designer Travis Winkey.

Read the Rest of the Story Here.

30 Americans

The artists of 30 Americans challenge, provoke, and, by the power of their incomparable images, force the viewer to consider them not as the unit the show's title suggests but as fiercely independent windows into the African American experience in the United States.
Through more than 200 works on view at the Rubell Family Collection in Wynwood, 31 artists offer expansive notions of what it means to be black, to be male and female -- and to be an American, a label they don't all wear with the same degree of comfort.
The exhibition of emerging and establish artists, a timely discourse on identity and history, has become more poignant with the inauguration of the first African American president. But 30 Americans extends beyond obvious issues to display a richness of visual language, technique and approach.
Some artists work with unique materials -- matches, shea butter, hair clippings swept from the floor of a Harlem barbershop, advertising images -- while others ply more traditional acrylics and oils.
Some appropriate hurtful images -- KKK hoods, the stereotype of black face -- and use them to explore the emotional pain of injustice. Others chronicle with faithful accuracy the bling culture, the hip-hop world, poverty and violence.
All display their condition as observers and participants through the extraordinary access of insiders.

Read the Rest of the Story Here.

Turning the Natural World on its Side

The notion of a path through life—either taken or not taken—is one of the most powerful recurring themes in art, and one that seems particularly relevant in a new exhibit at Stony Brook Southampton’s Avram Gallery of paintings by Richard Mayhew, whose colorful, inventive, imaginary landscapes have defied the art world’s classifications for generations.

“Transcendental Landscapes” is a vivid series of oil and watercolor pastoral scenes, many with winding roads beckoning the viewer further into the depths of the paintings’ dreamscape, The scenes are drawn from the imagination of an artist whose career has spanned an early life as a jazz singer and medical illustrator, involvement in a seminal group of artists who helped define African-American art during the Civil Rights era and six cross-country trips from New York to California to document the changing American landscape.

Mr. Mayhew, who is of both Native American and African-American descent, will give a lecture on his work at a kickoff celebration of Black History Month at the college on the evening of Saturday, January 31.

Read the Rest of the Story Here.

A Long Way Traveled

Where the pavement ends on Mount Olive Road, there stands a remnant of a bygone era. Peeking out from numerous too-close sapling trees and a few stray vines, the remains of the Long Ridge School are not that different from numerous other simple, boxy schoolhouses that once dotted the hills of Appalachia.
But Long Ridge School is not like many other community-built one- and two-room school houses throughout the region. Long Ridge School was one of nearly 5,000 schools for African-American children throughout the rural South built by the Rosenwald Initiative, a program funded by Julius Rosenwald, the one-time president of Sears, Roebuck and Co.
The school is now a dilapidated shell, but its former self is recalled in a painting by Mars Hill artist and former Long Ridge student Charity Ray.
“Oh, I can't even count how many of us there were that went to school there,” said Ray, now 72. “See, we had students that came up from Hot Springs and Marshall, too.”
Many of the younger voters of all races who helped to elect America's first African-American president, Barack Obama, may find it difficult to fathom how far America has come in a relatively short time until they view see the story of segregation through the eyes of someone like Ray, who's still a part of their community.

Read the Rest of the Story Here.

Forgive Me

Forgive me. Since I last posted I lost my Step-Dad in a car wreck and attended the Inauguration. I'm back on track now and expect to begin posting regularly this weekend.
James

Martin Puryear

"I want to make objects that somehow have their own history and their own reason for being and their own sense of themselves. … It's equally crucial that there exist in the work a recognition of the maker, of who I am," wrote Martin Puryear in 1978, when his career was just taking off.

Now at the peak of his powers, it is still instructive to ask who he is and what is revealed in his work about its maker.

An African American artist who deals with issues of racial identity only tangentially if at all, he was called "America's Best Artist" in 2001 by Time magazine critic Robert Hughes. In that same year a show of 12 of his sculptures organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, which traveled to the Berkeley Art Museum, was declared the best Bay Area art event of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Having seen that show, which was one of the best exhibitions by an American artist I have ever seen, I looked with anticipation to viewing his current exhibition of 47 sculptures at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I was not disappointed.

Including several of the works from the Berkeley show, it offers a survey of his career in depth that affirms Hughes' assertion and tells us more about who Puryear is without destroying the wonderful sense of mystery conveyed by his singular and stunningly beautiful work.

Read the Rest of the Story Here.

Thomas Miller: Pioneering artist honored for his stellar career

A room filled with people ate lunch at tables with white linen tablecloths. And they were all there because of Thomas Miller.

Looking sharp in his dark gray suit, Miller, 88, sat back in his chair in the dining room newly named for him and reflected on the day's event.

"This is quite an honor and I certainly appreciate it. Thank you, thank you, thank you," he said Tuesday at Smith Village, an assisted-living center at 2315 W. 112th Place in Chicago's Morgan Park community.

Miller has lived at Smith Village for several years. An artist since boyhood, Miller has created countless pieces of artwork, some of which now hang on the walls of the Thomas Miller Dining Room.

"It's unbelievable. This is one of the best things that's ever happened to me," Miller said.

One of the first black men to become a graphic artist in Chicago, Miller has a long history of bringing art to people's lives. And that's after he battled through racial discrimination often encountered in his life and career.

A display of his work can be found in the mosaics he created for the rotunda of the DuSable Museum of African American History. He helped design trademarks such as Motorola's M and a 7Up logo redesign, along with the trademarks for the Peace Corps, Second City, Hi-C and Quaker Oats.

Read the Rest of the Story Here.

Fabrics: Birmingham Museum of Art

Two concurrent exhibits at the Birmingham Museum of Art trace the cultural influences of fabric design from West Africa to the American South.

Opening today, "Fabric of Life: African Textiles and Quilts from the American South" and "Kente in the Community" will reveal the vivid colors and strikingly original patterns of African textiles and how they made their mark on African-American quilt design.

Many objects in the exhibits are part of the museum's permanent collection, but are rarely exhibited.

"The Museum is fortunate to have a truly outstanding collection of Alabama-made quilts and textiles from Africa," noted Gail Andrews, the museum's director. "We are very pleased to offer this opportunity to see exceptional objects that, because of their sensitivity to light, are rarely on view."

In addition to the museum-owned works, the African textiles at the exhibit are lent from Birmingham families. Some are made from cotton, others from Kente cloth -- a woven fabric from Ghana that was worn by kings and chiefs of the Asante and Ewe people. The unique patterns, which range from brightly colored fabric to subdued tones, exerted their influence across the Atlantic.

Read the Rest of the Story Here.