As the premier institution in Atlanta emphasizing works by and about women of the African Diaspora, the Museum is a unique cultural institution and a vital resource for visitors from the southeast and beyond. This Web site introduces you to the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art and its collection, exhibitions and volunteer opportunities. As the Museum grows, it is developing a host of new programs including Friends of the Museum and Volunteer Opportunities. The Museum staff invites you to view featured exhibitions, attend special events, participate in educational programs and visit frequently.
SPELMAN COLLEGE TO SHOWCASE ITS TREASURES
ATLANTA (January, 2009) Over the course of more than six decades, Spelman College has amassed an impressive collection of African and African American art created by Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Hale Woodruff, and Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, as well as many others. On Thursday, January 29, the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art will present “Showcase & Tell: Treasures From the Spelman College Permanent Collection.” The College acquired its collection through the generosity of alumnae, artists, trustees, and friends.
Showcasing more than 60 works, this exhibition traces the evolution of the College’s permanent collection by telling and exploring pivotal moments of Spelman’s history through the voices of artists, alumnae and administrators. These milestones in Spelman’s history include the founding of the department of art in 1931; the development of the Atlanta University Center Coordinated Art Program in 1965; and the establishment of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in 1996. “Showcase & Tell” will be on view from January 29 – May 16, 2009.
“Showcase & Tell” captures Spelman’s unique visual arts history and positions the institution as a repository for important works of art. The exhibition also explores the museum’s unique mission to focus on works by and about women of the African Diaspora. “Showcase & Tell” highlights a selection of African objects from diplomat and Spelman College trustee Mabel Murphy Smythe-Haith and the bequest from artist Selma Burke. It also features the recent promised gift from Gale and William Simmons of African ceramics created by women who reside throughout Africa.
In addition, “Showcase & Tell” presents important works by celebrated African American artists Herman “Kofi” Bailey, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Sam Gilliam, Jacob Lawrence, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Faith Ringgold, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Hale Woodruff, and many others. The Atlanta-based artists whose works will also be shown include James Adair,
Jenelsie Walden Holloway, Debra Johnson and Freddie Styles. The exhibition also features recent acquisitions by artists including Amalia Amaki, iona rozeal brown, and Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry.
We are pleased to announce that the María Magdalena Campos-Pons exhibit recently on view in the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art is featured in artforum.com's "Critics' Picks," a select review of shows worldwide. Read the review written by Rebecca Dimling Cochran
Part II of “Cinema Remixed and Reloaded” features such established artists as María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Julie Dash, Carroll Parrott Blue, Senga Nengudi, Berni Searle, Lorna Simpson and Kara Walker, and introduces works by emerging artists including Elizabeth Axtman, Zoë Charlton, Lauren Kelley and Xaviera Simmons. Promising to be equally engaging, Part II continues the explorations raised in Part I, examining such subjects as classic cinema and the male gaze.
It will be on view at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art through May 24, 2008. The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston will present the exhibition from April 25 through July 12, 2009.
Curated by Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, Ph.D., director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art and Valerie Cassel Oliver, curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, “Cinema Remixed and Reloaded” traces the evolution of video presentation over three decades, chronicling the critical contributions of black women artists to the field of contemporary art. This collaboration encapsulates the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art’s unique mission as the only museum in the nation that focuses on works by and about women of the African Diaspora. Additionally, the exhibition reinforces the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston’s commitment to providing a forum for visual arts of the present and recent past to document new directions in the field of contemporary art.
Images from Part I
Click thumbnail images to view select clips from artists featured in the exhibition
The original exhibition "Cinema Remixed & Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970," presented by the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in in two parts beginning last September, was listed as the "Best Exhibition of 2008"
in "Creative Loafing."
The exhibition opened at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in October.
Hale Woodruff, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet and the Academy: Art, Activism and the African Diaspora
January 18-May 12, 2007
Hale Woodruff, Celestial Gate, 1953, oil on canvas, 50 x 40 in. Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey Waddell, 1968.1.4.
“Hale Woodruff, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet and the Academy,” is a conservation, research and exhibition project that commemorates the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Spelman College art program.
Considered pioneering artists, Woodruff and Prophet established the art programs in the Atlanta University Center in the 1930s. Despite segregation, the artists created one of the premiere institutions for art instruction for African Americans. In light of their Atlanta accomplishments, “Hale Woodruff, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet and the Academy “ positions Woodruff and Prophet as the artist-educators and institution builders who challenged and transformed the existing academic structure and offerings for African Americans.
This exhibition will contextualize the artistic climate in the AUC in the 1940s, include a wide cross-section of works by Woodruff from other collections and present recently conserved works from the College’s permanent collection, many of which have not been on view for several decades.
RECOGNIZE: The Spelman College Department of Art Faculty Exhibition
September 14 - December 16, 2006
Charnelle Holloway, Dancer, 2005, repoussé, cast metal and fabric, 12 x 8 x 5 in.
Courtesy the artist.
The 2006 Spelman College Art Faculty Exhibition is curated by Ed Spriggs, the founder and Director Emeritus of Hammonds House Galleries and Resource Center for African American Art. A leading curator and mentor, he continues to serve the arts in Atlanta and across the nation as a consultant, curator and fine art appraiser.
The Spelman College Art Faculty Exhibition features recent work by Charnelle Holloway, Arturo Lindsay, Frank Toby Martin, M. Akua McDaniel, Lev Mills and Barbara Nesin. A dedicated group of artists and scholars, their art has been exhibited widely throughout Atlanta, the nation and the world in numerous group and solo exhibitions. Working in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, drawing, graphic design and photography, through their art they examine a host of overlapping themes including spirituality, memory, Diasporic continuity, aesthetic retentions, the passing of time, faith, beauty, knowledge, difference, gender inequities and the betterment of society.
Amalia Amaki, Purple Lady, 2004, color photograph, 29 x 21 in. Courtesy Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia.
Incorporating engaging themes, accessible images, common materials and wise humor, Amalia Amaki’s art disrupts and challenges conventional ideas about culture, race and American history. For more than three decades, this Atlanta-based artist has garnered acclaim for her mixed media quilts, button-encrusted souvenirs and manipulated photographs. Amalia Amaki: Boxes, Buttons and the Blues is the first major exhibition and catalogue of her work. Focusing on the period from 1993 to 2005, this mid-career survey includes more than seventy works. Amalia Amaki: Boxes, Buttons and the Blues is a collaboration between the National Museum of Women in the Arts and the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. The exhibition’s national tour is generously sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company. Additional support provided by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners under the guidance of the Fulton County Arts Council.
March 24 through May 13, 2005
African American Art
from
the
Smithsonian
The Spelman College Museum of Fine Art proudly presented the African American Masters: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum from March 24 through May 13, 2005. African American Masters featuring 61 paintings, sculptures and photographs from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection.
The original exhibition "Cinema 
