Harlem
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New Partnership
West Harlem Art Fund has formed a new partnership with NYCXDesign. During Design Week in mid-May, Harlem Sculpture Gardens will be a featured tour for NYC residents and the design community. Harlem Sculpture Gardens 2026 will be presented across six venues this year. The roster of artists are quite diverse. Additional partnerships are in development.…
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Notable Women from Harlem
On Friday, June 6, 2025, NYC Department of Transportation in partnership with artist Fitgi Saint-Louis and the West Harlem Art Fund will unveil the sculp- ture “Aunties” on the 124th Street and Lenox Avenue median. The work presents three figures, each standing 6.5 feet high, 6 inches deep, and 16 inches wide. This sculpture is…
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Public Art in Harlem and Beyond
This Friday, at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, panelists will discuss how contemporary presentation styles for public art affect urban communities like Harlem today. Among the panelists are Kendal Henry, Assistant Commissioner, Public Art, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and Harlem-based artists Fitgi Saint-Louis and Dianne Smith. The West Harlem Art Fund’s…
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Wild about Florence
When Shuffle Along opened at the 63rd Street Music Hall on May 23, 1921, it marked the return of all-black musical shows to Broadway after nearly a decade-long silence. The last successful musical wholly written and performed by African Americans to be performed south of Harlem had been the George Walker–Bert Williams vehicle Bandanna Land in 1908. When Walker…
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Fitgi Saint Louis chosen as Community Commissions artist with West Harlem Art Fund
Fitgi Saint-Louis is a multidisciplinary artist based in Harlem, NY. Her work considers the layered and intertwined nature of identity, remembrance and community within African, American and Caribbean cultures. Appearing in paint, textiles and sculpture, her abstracted figures honor the multifaceted ancestry of the African diaspora. With a background in design, Saint-Louis utilizes form and…
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Community Commissions
The West Harlem Art Fund has been selected to lead a community commission with NYC DOT. The approved site is 124th Street and Lenox Avenue in the median. Proposal applications are due June 30th. We want artist(s) to incorporate spirit of Harlem, its people and its very diverse history. Below are short posts that artists…
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Harlem Sculpture Gardens opens May 2nd
April 18, 2024–New York, New York: Harlem Sculpture Gardens is honored to announce the launch of its debut art project, curated to foster joy and beauty within our local community. Harlem will host its first large-scale sculpture exhibition on May 02, 2024, and run through October 30, 2024. A plethora of local public…
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Space Uptown 2024
AHL Foundation is pleased to announce the artists selected for Space Uptown 2024. Co-curated by Savona Bailey-McClain, Executive Director & Chief Curator, West Harlem Art Fund and Jiyoung Lee, Gallery Director, AHL Foundation. The artists for this year’s exhibition are Ara Ko, Carlos Mateu, Bishop McIndoe, Kai Oh and Kejoo Park. Supported by Manna’s…
AHL Foundation, Ara Ko, art, Artistic Noise, Asian artists, BIPOC artists, Bishop Capital, Bishop McIndoe, Carlos Mateu, contemporary art, Hannah Traore Gallery, Harlem, Harlem art, Harlem Arts, Harlem Stage, Jiyoung Lee, Kai Oh, Kejoo Park, Korean artists, Latinx artists, Maysles Documentary Center, modern art, Pace Gallery, Savona Bailey-McClain, West Harlem, West Harlem Art, West Harlem Art Fund, West harlem Arts
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Augusta Savage – Our inspiration
I have created nothing really beautiful, really lasting, but if I can inspire one of these youngsters to develop the talent I know they possess, then my monument will be in their work. Augusta Savage Born Green Cove Springs, FL 1892 – died New York City March 1962 The career of Augusta Savage was fostered…
artist, Augusta Savage, Cooper Union School of Art, Gamin, Harlem, Harlem art, Harlem Artist Guild, Harlem Arts, Harlem Community Art Center, Harlem Renaissance, Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, Harlem Sculpture Gardens, James Weldon Johnson, Lift Every Voice and Sing, New York’s World Fair of 1939, NYC, Salon of Contemporary Negro Art, Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts, sculptor, teacher
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Tribute to Renaissance artist William H. Johnson
Born 1901, Florence, South Carolina Died 1970, Central Islip, New York Born in a small South Carolina town, William H. Johnson left for New York at seventeen and enrolled at the National Academy of Design in 1921. Though he originally intended to become a cartoonist, he won acclaim as a painter, leading to a…
African sculptures, Black migration, enevive Nykolak, expressionis landscapes, Harlem, Harlem art, Harlem Renaissance, Harlem Renaissance artist, Holcha Krake, National Academy of Design, NYC, painter, Paris, portraits, primitive paintings, sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Sweet Chariot, Swing Low, vernacular style, William H. Johnson, WPA, WWII
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Haint Blu comes to West Harlem
Haint Blu is an ensemble dance-theater work seeped in memory and magic. Known as the color that Southern families paint their front porches to ward off bad spirits, Haint Blu uses performance as a center and source of healing, taking us through movement into stillness and rest: remembering, reclaiming, releasing, and restoring. It is…
Arianne Zager, Chanon Judson, Courtney J. Cook, Everett Saunders, Grace Galu Kalambay, Haint Blu, Harlem, III, Jaime Dzandu, James Lanius, Jolie Saltiel, Jonathan D. Secor, Kentoria Earle, Lori Gassie, Mame Diarra Speis, Manhattanville, Mikaila Ware, Nicholas Hussong, Nina Angela Mercer, Pia Monique Murray, Roobi Gaskins, Savona Bailey-McClain, Shirazette Tinnin, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Talvin Wilks, Tuce Yasak, West Harlem
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Root of Color
New York, NY… In the exhibition Root of Color, artists showcase the role that color has played in bridging cultures, emotions, and traditions throughout history. For this special show in AHL’s uptown gallery, four artists of Korean and Afro-Latino backgrounds were selected. AHL Foundation, Inc. supports artists of Korean heritage working in the United States…
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SAY THEIR NAMES
Below are the names of Black entertainers that lived in a three block radius in Central Harlem now a historic district. This shows that talent was in abundance in our community. These names are now forgotten. Let’s bring them back by saying their names. It’s quite a list. 1920 Census West 130th Street Brown, Alfred…
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STAN SQUIREWELL IN HARLEM
I am examining the relativity of global indigenous geometric patterns, specifically West African Kente schema, as a possible progenitor of modern digital cultures. I see overwhelming similarities in basic constructions and designs of computer processing chips and video games to the geometrical weave of the cloth. The vividly bold colors, precise hard lines, sequential rhythms…
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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 costumes and dolls that were…
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Robert Blackburn & Modern American Printmaking
Robert Blackburn & Modern American Printmaking at the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum celebrates both the artist and the democratic and diverse creative community he developed. Born of Jamaican immigrants and raised in Harlem, Blackburn was an innovative printmaker and influential teacher. Blackburn explored avant-garde ideas while promoting a new collaborative approach to printmaking. The…
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GORDON PARKS: HALF AND THE WHOLE
Jack Shainman Gallery is pleased to announce Gordon Parks: Half and the Whole, on view at both gallery locations. As a photographer, film director, composer, and writer, Gordon Parks (1912-2006) was a visionary artist whose work continues to influence American culture to this day. In collaboration with the Gordon Parks Foundation, this two-part exhibition featuring…
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New Program
Covid 19 revealed that many Americans wanted to connect more with nature, people, and meaningful activities. For years, the arts community has been trying to engage the public. It wasn’t until we lost those connections that people rallied to save them. The West Harlem Art Fund is developing two Public Program Fellowships to create programs…
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JAMES BALDWIN IS BACK — THANK GOD
Born in 1924 in New York City, James Baldwin published the 1953 novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, going on to garner acclaim for his insights on race, spirituality and humanity. Other novels included Giovanni’s Room, Another Country and Just Above My Head as well as essay works like Notes of a Native Son…
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NOMINATING HARLEM’S LITTLE BLACKBIRD
American singer and dancer, a leading performer during the Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s Florence Mills, known as the “Queen of Happiness” was one of the most successful entertainers of the 1920s. Many spoke about her enchanting qualities, but it was her singing that was most spellbinding. James Weldon Johnson’s assessment…
Alhambra Theatre, cabaret, Eubie Blake, Florence Mills, Florence Winfrey, Harlem, Harlem Jazz Queen, Harlem Renaissance, I’m a little blackbird looking for a bluebird, Jazz Age, Langston Hughes, Lew Leslie, Mills Sisters, Mt. Zion AME church, Noble Sissle, Plantation Club, Plantation Company, Plantation Revue, Queen of Happiness, Savona Bailey-McClain curator + artistic director, She Built NYC, show business, Shuffle Along, vaudeville, West Harlem Art Fund, Ziegfield Follies
West Harlem Art Fund 