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Spelman College Museum of Fine Art

Spelman College Museum of Fine Art


Spelman College Museum of Fine Art Black American Portraits Exhibition

Black American Portraits: A Symposium

A two-day symposium on March 2-3, 2023, centered around Black American Portraits on view at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, February 8 – June 30, 2023

The first Atlanta University Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective / Spelman College Museum of Fine Art collaborative symposium, the two-day “Black American Portraits” symposium will bring together a distinguished group of artists, including Amy Sherald, Calida Rawles and Bisa Butler as well as scholars such as Deborah Willis and Bridget Cooks, for panel discussions, performances, lectures and films that question the role of the portrait in African American art, history, culture, identity and social movements. 

Spanning over two centuries from around 1800 to the present day, “Black American Portraits” chronicles the ways in which Black Americans have used portraiture to envision themselves in their own eyes. Remembering “Two Centuries of Black American Art,” curated by David C. Driskell at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 1976, this exhibition reframes portraiture to center Black American subjects, sitters and spaces at a crucial time in our nation’s reckoning with the impact and legacy of visual representations on Black lives.

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Museum Exhibition: Black American Portraits

February 8 – June 30, 2023

Spring 2022 Hours: Wednesday – Saturday | 12-5 p.m.

Black American Portraits travels to Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Featuring New Acquisitions including a New Work by Calida Rawles

Following its debut at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 2021, the group exhibition "Black American Portraits" travels to Atlanta’s Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. Co-curated by Spelman College Museum of Fine Art’s executive director Liz Andrews and Tate’s Britton Family curator-at-large Christine Y. Kim (both formerly of LACMA), the exhibition reframes portraiture to center Black American subjects, sitters and spaces – this time placing Black women portrait artists center stage. 

New to the exhibition at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art will be four acquisitions: a new painting by Calida Rawles - who will celebrate her 25th anniversary as a Spelman College alumna in 2023, two works by Augusta Savage, and a photograph of Spelman Alumna Stacey Abrams by Sheila Pree Bright. 

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Wednesday - Saturday
10 a.m. - 5 p.m. 


CLOSED 
Sunday, Monday, holidays, summers, and official Spelman College breaks

Suggested donation is $3.00