Rush to see 'Afro-Atlantic Histories' before they close Sunday!

Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art, welcomes visitors to Afro-Atlantic Histories, April 5, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

You may thank me later for steering you to this outstanding show, if you have not been or, if like me, you go again.

Honestly, my second visit to the National Gallery of Art: Afro-Atlantic Histories made more of an impression with the size, scope, and contents covering the 17th to 21st centuries and spanning four continents, than my first time there.

More than 130 works are represented in graphic stories of Blacks and their histories from all sides of the Atlantic.  It is  astonishing and one of those exhibitions I wish would never end, but it's soon moving to Los Angeles.

The show has something for all and will open eyes wide, no matter how much education you have or think you have.

George Morland, European Ship Wrecked on the Coast of Africa, known as African Hospitality, 1789, oil on canvas, The Menil Collection, Houston 

Emanoel Araujo, O navio [The Ship], 2007, polychromed wood and carbon steel, Collection Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, gift of the artist

James Phillips, Description of a slave ship, 1789, woodcut, Rare Books, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library. 

Description of a slave ship is really too small to see here so you must visit the exhibition and see it firsthand. Each of the 600 prisoners aboard the ship, the Brooks, had a 16-inch space for two months, the time it took to sail the Atlantic, bound for the West Indies from Britain, according to the label copy.  Mr. Phillips, a fervent abolitionist, printed more than 8,000 copies of this plan. Britain outlawed slavery in 1807 but it wasn't until 1833 that slavery was abolished in the British colonies.  Read more about it here and figure the size of 16 inches. 

Johann Moritz Rugendas, Slaves in the Cargo Hold of a Slave Ship (detail), c. 1835, lithograph with watercolor, Instituto Ricardo Brennand, Recife, Pernambuci, Brazil

Kerry James Marshall, Voyager (detail), 1992, acrylic and collage on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Corcoran Collection (Gift of the Women’s Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art) © Kerry James Marshall

The National Gallery of Art hosted an exhibition of Mr. Marshall's works in 2013 which you may read about here and see him there. 

Nona Faustine, From her body sprang their greatest wealth, 2013, photographic print, artist's collection

The photographer, shown above, wants to make a statement, according to label copy, that it wasn't just in the South where slavery was practiced but on this Wall Street spot, the first place in New York City where slaves were bought and sold for more than 50 years in the 18th century. Like many others who were trafficked, purchased and handed down to heirs, Ms. Faustine pictures herself nude as a reminder of life for the enslaved.

John Philip Simpson, The Captive Slave, 1827, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, purchased with funds provided by Mary Winton Green, Dan and Sara Green Cohan, Howard and Lisa Green and Jonathan and Brenda Green, in memory of David Green

Samuel Raven, Celebrating the Emancipation of Slaves in British Dominions, August, 1834, oil on canvas, The Menil Collection, Houston

Ernest Crichlow, Harriet Tubman, 1953, oil on masonite, courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York

Wikipedia says Ms. Tubman (1822–1913) was an American abolitionist and social activist who was born into slavery. After she escaped slavery twice in 1849, Tubman made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the "Underground Railroad." 

During the Civil War, she was a cook, a nurse, an armed scout and spy for the Union Army and was the first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war. 

In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the movement for women's suffrage. She met John Brown in 1858 and helped him plan and recruit supporters for his 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry. 

Last year President Joe Biden resumed the effort to have Ms. Tubman’s likeness placed on the $20 bill to replace that of President Andrew Jackson, action the Trump administration had blocked.

John Adam Houston, The Fugitive Slave (detail), 1853, oil on canvas, The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, SC. One of my favorites in the exhibition. 

This is only a portion of the painting and does not show the star directly above the escaped slave, similar to the Star of Bethlehem on the night the Three Wise Men visited the Baby Jesus.  Mr. Houston lived from 1812-1884 primarily in Edinburgh and London and likely never visited the U.S. but the Johnson Collection says he may have been inspired "by the poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1842, The Slave in the Dismal Swamp, and by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin."  You can see the star at the John Adam Houston link above or at the exhibition.  Look at these colors!

Lois Mailou Jones, The Green Door (detail), 1981, watercolor over graphite, National Gallery of Art, Corcoran Collection Museum Purchase, William A. Clark Fund

William Walker, Noon Day Pause in the Cotton Field, c.1885 oil on canvas, The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, SC

Archibald John Motley Jr., Nightlife (detail), 1943, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, purchased with funds provided by Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Field, Jack and Sandra Guthman, Ben W. Heineman, Ruth Horwich, Lewis and Susan Manilow, Beatrice C. Mayer, Charles A. Meyer, John D. Nichols,  and Mr. and Mrs. E.B. Smith Jr.; James W. Alsdorf Memorial Fund; Goodman Endowment.

I see this and want to get up and dance!  They are having so much fun!  It makes me happy.  A large painting, full of life and vigor which tell me that life's moments  pass too quickly, and we must seize opportunities to get up and dance and carpe diem!

Eugène Delacroix, Portrait of a Woman in a Blue Turban, c. 1827, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., in honor of Patricia McBride

Osmond Watson, Johnny Cool, 1967, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Jamaica

He's a cool cat, isn't he?  You don't need to look at the title of this work to know he's one cool dude, or almost that with that slouched position and arm swung over the chair, but, wait!  After a closer look, his eyes seem to lose their confidence and his posture undermines his original cockiness. Even on canvas, the painting changes.  Now, how does this artist do this?  That's one cool artist!

Daniel Lind-Ramos, Figura de Poder (Power Figure), 2016-2018, mirrors, concrete blocks, cement bag, sledgehammer, construction stones bag, paint bucket, wood panels, palm tree trunk, burlap, leather, ropes, sequin, awning, plastic ropes, fabric, trumpet, pins, duct tape, maracas, sneaker, tambourine, working gloves, basketballs, boxing gloves, acrylic overall, National Gallery of Art, New Century Fund

What's there to say except it's big and full of meaning which is...?

Alma Thomas, March on Washington (detail), 1964, acrylic on canvas, courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York.

The painting above was recently on view at Washington's Phillips Collection which hosted an exhibition of Ms. Thomas's works, Everything is Beautiful. The artist (1892-1978) became a lifelong resident of Washington after moving here with her family from Columbus, Georgia where her father thought the environment was not the best for his family. 

This painting was an outlier in Ms. Thomas's portfolio since she usually drew abstracts of non-political suasion, but for the March on Washington, Ms. Thomas put brush to canvas to capture a moment when Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, galvanizing his supporters and the artist, too.

A morning in spring at the National Gallery of Art/Photo by Patricia Leslie, April 5, 2022

Afro-Atlantic Histories is adopted from a much larger show from 2018 (on which the catalog is based) presented at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo and the Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo. The latter was the 2014 site of the origin of the 2018 show in a presentation called Histories of Slavery.


A Brazilian team curated Afro-Atlantic Histories, which is fitting, the essayists note in the catalog, given that Brazil, for more than 300 years, received about 40 percent of Africans forcibly removed from their homes, and today has the second-highest population of Blacks in the world, after Nigeria.


Included above are the portraits, paintings, photographs, sculptures which I found most intriguing, but there are many, many more to whet appetites for learning and see Black history and culture come to life.


The label copy is in Engish and Spanish.


And the catalog! Oh, my! Published by Museu de Arte de São Paulo, it has 400 pages in color of 400 works by 200 artists ($69.95). Not to miss and see and read time and time again.


And don't forget Artle! It's lots of fun!

In conjunction with the exhibition, movies by international filmmakers will be presented at no charge through July 17 in the West Building Lecture Hall. Registration is required at nga.gov/film. Go here for more information.


From Washington, the exhibition moves to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 11, 2022–April 30, 2023, and next to the Dallas Museum of Art with dates to be announced.


Afro-Atlantic Histories was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Museu de Arte de Sāo Paulo in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art.

What: Afro-Atlantic Histories

When: Now through July 17, 2022, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Where: Main floor of the West Building, National Gallery of Art, Washington

How much: Admission is always free at the National Gallery of Art.

Metro stations for the National Gallery of Art:
Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives, or L'Enfant Plaza

For more information: (202) 737-4215

Accessibility information: (202) 842-6905

patricialesli@gmail.com

Women's Museum celebrates black female art

 Mavis Pusey (b. 1928), Dejygea, 1970. Courtesy of Brock and Co. This piece debuted at the 1971 "Contemporary Black Artists in America" exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. It illustrates Ms. Pusey's embrace of old, dilapidated New York structures and their architecture.  The museum label notes that early on, Ms. Pusey's work was frequently mischaracterized by museum curators as about "self" rather than the artist's environment she chose.


Looking for an indoor place to take your brood over the holidays?  Children (and adults) will be intrigued by what lies in front of them at the National Museum of Women in the Arts' new show, Magnetic Fields:  Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today.  There discussions may be piqued by renderings which can trigger emotions and senses to include, but not limited to, humor, sadness, awareness, contemporary times, and whatever else one can detect and extract.  

I guarantee you no one will find it "boring," not the young, not the "don't bother me" teenager, nor the dragged-along Uncle George who doesn't want to go anywhere or do anything. 

With representations by 21 contemporary black female artists, the museum is proud to present the first U.S. exhibition by abstract artists of this genre.  Reading the labels and hearing the voices of the women who describe their backgrounds and experiences make attempted comprehension much more enjoyable.  

The artists' lives span 90 years, from 1891 to 1981, and several of the works are on public view for the first time.

They are "under-recognized" and "marginalized," says museum literature. The museum director, Susan Fisher Sterling, writes: "This exhibition shifts our attention to key practitioners who have not received their due" and are important to contemporary art history.

Named after Mildred Thompson's Magnetic Fields (in the show), a November 28 event will present two of the artists, Susan Snowden and Shinique Smith in public discussion. (See below.)

 Maren Hassinger (b. 1947), Wrenching News, 2008, courtesy of the artist. Twisted and torn pieces of the New York Times convey the artist's representation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and its aftereffects which evoke "the poignant sociopolitical issues exposed in the wake of this natural disaster." Call 202-747-3417 and dial 205# to hear the artist speak about it/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A close-up of Maren Hassinger's Wrenching News, 2008, above/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Howardena Pindell (b. 1943), Autobiography: Japan (Shisen-do, Kyoto), 1982, courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York. Using paint, collage elements, and hole-punched paper, the artist depicts her seven-month sojourn in Japan on a "friendship grant" and her attempts to save her memory after a serious car accident in 1979. Call 202-747-3417 and dial 209# to hear her/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A close-up of Howardena Pindell's Autobiography: Japan (Shisen-do, Kyoto), 1982, above/Photo by Patricia Leslie

From left Chakaia Booker, El Gato;  Mavis Pusey, Dejydea; and Abigail Deville, Harlem Flag/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Abigail Deville (b. 1981), Harlem Flag, 2014, courtesy of the artist. Made from objects the artist found in Harlem and arranged to contrast and compare parallels between past and present/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Chakaia Booker (b. 1953), El Gato, 2001, collection of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Since the early 1990s, Ms. Booker has used rubber tires which represent travel, industry, ecology, skin and muscle as her primary medium.  Here the "regal pose and aura of a feline" is depicted in The Cat. The artist sculpts herself daily with wearable art/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The name of Barbara Chase-Riboud (b. 1939), Zanzibar/Black, 1974-75, may be better known as a poet and author who wrote Sally Hemings, 1979. This is courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery and "exemplifies the artist's interest in developing monuments dedicated to transformative individuals and places."/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sylvia Snowden (b. 1942), June 12, 1992 is the wedding anniversary of Ms. Snowden's parents who, with Howard University, the artist credits for helping her succeed in the art world.  This was part of a series which was on exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in 1992 and is hung courtesy of the artist. Call 202-747-3417 and dial 214# to hear Ms. Snowden speak of this work/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Shinique Smith (b. 1971), Bale Variant No. 0017, 2009, Denver Art Museum Collection.  Fabric, wood, ink, twine and ribbon comprise the sculpture. The artist weaves her own clothing and pieces she finds "to visualize the tension of accumulation and consumption."/Photo by Patricia Leslie

At the exhibition's opening Virginia Treanor, NMWA associate curator, called the museum "a natural platform for an exhibit like this." Several of the artists were born in Washington and Baltimore where some reside. Some graduated from Howard University.

"This is not a survey," Ms. Treanor emphasized in her opening remarks, or "meant to be comprehensive."

Curators were Melissa Messina and Erin Dziedzic, director of curatorial affairs at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri. 

In conjunction with the show, Sylvia Snowden and Shinique Smith will speak at the museum November 28 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Guests pay $25 ($15, members, seniors, and students) to mingle with the artists, see the exhibition and other collections, and enjoy food and beverages. It is close to a sellout. Make required reservations here.

A 144-paged illustrated catalogue is available in the museum gift shop and online.

Other artists in the show are Candida Alvarez, Betty Blayton, Lilian Thomas Burwell, Nanette Carter, Deborah Dancy, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Gilda Snowden, Kianja Strobert, Jennie C. Jones, Evangeline "EJ" Montgomery, Alma Woodsey Thomas, and Brenna Youngblood.


What: Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today

When:  Now through January 21, 2018. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.; Sundays, 12 - 5 p.m. 

Where:  The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005

Admission: Free on the first Sunday of the month (December 3, 2017 and January 7, 2018 for this show) or $10, adults; $8, seniors and students; and always free for members and children, 18 and under.

For more information: 202-783-5000

Metro station: Metro Center. Exit at 13th Street and walk two blocks north.


patricialesli@gmail.com

Black artists' collection grows at National Gallery of Art

Kerry James Marshall (b. 1955), Great America, 1994, National Gallery of Art, Washington

One month remains to see a spectacular modern show at the National Gallery of Art.

In the tower at the East Building are ten colorful, provocative paintings and more than 20 works on paper, drawn by one of "the finest painters of our time," said a sponsor.

Kerry James Marshall at the opening of his show at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.  Behind him is Our Town, 1995, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR/Photo by Patricia Leslie 

Kerry James Marshall, 58, a Birmingham, Alabama native and MacArthur "Genius" grant recipient, spent part of his growing-up years in Watts in Los Angeles which dramatically influenced his art.  When he was a fifth grader, he probably was the only student who decorated his notebook with decals of Gauguin paintings, he said at the opening of the Washington exhibition.

His works at the National Gallery are big and bold, complex, and full of mystery. They represent his first solo show in Washington, and, according to art critic Tyler Green, it's the first show of a living African-American artist organized by the Gallery.

Earl A. Powell III, the Gallery's director, said one of the primary goals at the institution is to strengthen its collection of works by African-Americans which now numbers more than 150 pieces.

Mr. Marshall said the purpose in his pictures is to show "what it means to be a black person" in the U.S. and "how we see ourselves."  He tries "to make art about things that matter" and "confronts the American Dream from a black perspective." The Gallery's curator of the show, James Meyer, associate curator of modern art, calls Mr. Marshall's works "history paintings."

Kerry James Marshall, left, and NGA's James Meyer at the opening of the Marshall show.    Behind them is Marshall's Gulf Stream, 2003, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis/Photo by Patricia Leslie

On a recent Kojo Nnamdi show on WAMU with Mr. Green, Mr. Marshall said he inserts black figures in typically American scenes to make viewers aware of the exclusion of African-Americans from much of the nation's history.  

If he intends to heighten awareness of the omission of blacks from common American images and themes, Mr. Marshall succeeds, but the show is more than civil rights and exclusions. 

His figures are flat black, without any shading, skin tone variation, or much facial expression, other than solemnity and a hint of fear in some. Haunting eyes help make the subjects appear doll-like and unreal, sometimes planted like foreign objects which don't belong in scenes which are often ambiguous and provoking, like the woman in a neighborhood in Our Town (1995) who waves from a distance to two black children clamoring to play or get away? 

Is she the children's mother calling out to them?  Or a domestic?  The sun sets in a brightly lighted sky, but over to the right partially hidden behind the trees is a huge fireball.  Things to come?  The label asks:  "Is 'our town' their town?"  Suggestions of slave cabins stand to the left of the house.

The Marshall presentation stems from the Gallery's purchase in 2011 of his Great America (1994) which forms the nucleus of the exhibition.  A brief glance renders the piece as commentary on an American summer pastime:  Two couples ride a boat in an amusement park, but a longer look reveals unsettling components: ghosts in the tunnel of love and a man bobbing in the water.  Are those monsters in the sea?  Another ghost, this one, bigger and veiled, consumes almost half the work.  Do you see it?  Mr. Marshall says the painting represents the Rite of Middle Passage for blacks, traveling from Africa to America, Great America.  The bigger ghost is not as apparent, but it is very real.  Incredible.

Mr. Marshall often uses water in his art which he describes in the show's brochure, as "locus of the trauma" experienced by blacks coming from Africa to America.  Water represents the children hosed by firemen in Birmingham in 1963, he says.

Kerry James Marshall (b.1955), Bang, 1994, The Progressive Art Collection/The Progressive Corp., Mayfield Village, OH

In Bang (1994), a garden hose become a black snake encircling a girl while smoke escaping from a grill looks eerily like a writhing serpent getting ready to strike.

"Happy July 4" is strung in pink clouds at the bottom while a banner interwoven between the words says: "We are One." What is the white ladder along the right side extending up from a white box?  "This way out"?

The more you investigate, the more you find.

Mr. Marshall's works not only depict loss of participation and inclusion, but they serve as lessons in American history, too.  Come and see what you can find.  The paintings represent huge puzzles children will find intriguing, as well.

Dr. Anita Blanchard (above) and her husband, Martin Nesbitt, with Cari and Michael Sacks are major sponsors of the Marshall show.  Dr. Blanchard is the doctor who delivered President and Mrs. Obama's two daughters, Malia and Sasha/Photo by Patricia Leslie

What: In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall

When: Now through December 8, 2013, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sunday. 


Where: The Tower, East Building, National Gallery of Art, between Third and Ninth streets at Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. On the Mall.

Admission: No charge

Metro stations: Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives, or L'Enfant Plaza

For more information: 202-737-4215



patricialesli@gmail.com