Category: United States
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Alfred Conteh, American Artist
Biography Alfred Amadu Conteh was born in 1975 in Fort Valley, Georgia. He attended Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia, where he received a BFA. He received his MFA from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia. His mother is African American and his father is from Sierra Leone, West Africa. Many…
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Gilded Age Women
There is a sizeable gap in the documentation of Black American history. So often, what we see of Black history is limited to slavery and the Civil War or the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights era. Record of African Americans during the Gilded Age – prospering African Americans – is noticeably…
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I have Always Worked Hard in America — Elizabeth Catlett
Artist Profile Elizabeth Catlett 1915 to 2012 The granddaughter of former slaves, Catlett was raised in Washington, D.C. Her father died before she was born and her mother held several jobs to raise three children. Refused admission to Carnegie Institute of Technology because of her race, Catlett enrolled at Howard…
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Honoring the Movement
In 1983, Congressman William D. Ford (D-MI), chairman of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee, and Rep. Conyers gave their support to Representative Katie B. Hall (D-IN) for chairman of the subcommittee that had primary jurisdiction over the MLK Holiday Bill. That same year, CBC member and freshman…
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Meet Rose B. Simpson
Rose B. Simpson is a mixed-media artist from Santa Clara Pueblo, NM. Her work engages ceramic sculpture, metals, fashion, performance, music, installation, writing, and custom cars. She received an MFA in Ceramics from Rhode Island School of Design in 2011, an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from the Institute of American…
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Lizzio honors 17 activists
In honor of Women’s History Month, we wish to support the women activists that the singer Lizzo honored during the People Choice Award. Tireless advocates that many of us have never heard of but stay true to their mission. We need to get to know them. Amariyanna Copeny, also known…
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Chidinma Nnoli debuts in Chelsea
Read a recent article in the New Frame about the artist Chidinma Nnoli. The first paragraph described her work as poetry. And when you view her work, it’s very evident. There’s a quiet beauty to her paintings laced with layers of flowers and layered to provide texture. To see women…
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Black Potters from the South
The landmark exhibition Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina opened at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 9, 2022. Focusing on the work of African American potters in the19th-century American South, in dialogue with contemporary artistic responses, the exhibition presents approximately 50 ceramic objects…
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Black Textile Art
Established as a way to promote textile awareness and encourage creativity, New York Textile Week celebrates its seventh edition this fall. According to Lidewij Edelkoort, founder of New York Textile Month “the world of art and design is confronted with a debilitating lack of knowledge concerning textiles. Architects, artists…
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Colorado artist Floyd D. Tunson
Tunson uses what is in and around him for inspiration: comics, news stories, memories, the natural world, and technology. “The work is just continuous with my life,” he said. But also at his core is a deep reverence for learning and exploration. He taught art at Palmer High School…
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Barbara Jones-Hogu Printmaker
Barbara Jones-Hogu (born Chicago, IL 1938–died Chicago Heights, IL 2017) Painter and printmaker Barbara Jones-Hogu was a founding member of the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (AfriCOBRA), an artist collective formed in Chicago in 1968. Members of AfriCOBRA visually expressed the central ideas of the Black Power movement—self-determination, unity, and…
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Peter Uka 1st solo show in NYC
Peter Uka: Remembrance is the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York, NY. Born in 1975 in Nigeria’s Benue State and based in Cologne, Germany, Uka paints large-scale portraits and group scenes that draw inspiration from childhood memories, including 70s-era fashion and hairstyles, wallpaper patterns, and dance moves. Elucidating the…
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Ulysses S. Grant our 18th President
Quotes by President Ulysses S. Grant “Enfrancishment and equal rights should accompany emancipation”. “Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a means of peace”. “The great bulk of the legal voters of the South…
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HARLEM’S FAITH RINGGOLD
Last night, a special tour of Faith Ringgold’s retrospective was offered at the New Museum by Artnoir. The works were stunning. Overwhelming at times. Everyone learned something new about Harlem’s Faith Ringgold. We highly recommend that folks see this show. The works inspired by France are worth seeing alone. There are…
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Harriet Powers
Yesterday was National Quilting Day. And a person that needs a spotlight in the African American community is Harriet Powers. Considered the mother of the African American story quilt tradition, Harriet Powers (1837–1910) was well known when she made these works of art. Born into slavery in Madison County, Georgia, Harriet…
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Noni Olabisi
On this International Women’s Day, we share that revolutionary artist Noni Olabisi has died. She has created powerful murals in Los Angeles for decades. Noni Olabisi was an artist and muralist with over 25 years experience, receiving many awards in recognition of her talents. Noni was a winner of the coveted…
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Project Backboard
Project Backboard is a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to renovate public basketball courts and install large scale works of art on the surface in order to strengthen communities, improve park safety, encourage multi-generational play, and inspire people to think more critically and creatively about their environment. St. Nicholas…
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Honoring Joseph Elmer Yoakum
Over a late and brief career, Joseph Elmer Yoakum produced more than 2,000 immersive landscapes that chronicle the terrain of his nomadic youth with bold color and complex detail. Called to art by spiritual means in the last 10 years of his life, Yoakum never formally studied drawing, instead…
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Philly’s Picture-Taking Man John W. Mosley
John W. Mosley was a self-taught photojournalist who extensively documented the everyday activities of the African-American community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for more than 30 years, a period including both World War II and the civil rights movement. His work was published widely in newspapers and magazines including The Philadelphia Tribune,…
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Remembering Charles Alston
This coming Friday, West Harlem Art Fund will moderate a panel discussion on Mexican Muralism and its impact on American art. If you are familiar with the subject, you know that the movement was immortalized by Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David Siqueiros. But their reach crossed North America…
