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Arts
Spelman Museum Celebrates 30 Years of Black Women’s Art with “Between Here & Infinity: Celebrating 30 Years of the Spelman College Art Collection”
Nearly 70 Works Trace the Evolution of the Museum’s Collection and the Black Feminist Imagination
ATLANTA (August 20, 2026) - The Spelman College Museum of Fine Art presents Between Here & Infinity: Celebrating 30 Years of the Spelman College Art Collection, an expansive exhibition featuring nearly seventy works by Black women artists who shape our permanent collection and define our mission. Beginning September 9, 2026, visitors to the Spelman College Museum will have opportunities to discover art and artists from the collection. The first exhibition to span both the museum’s galleries, this exhibition will open in two waves: at the Bank of America Gallery at the Mary Schmidt Campbell Center for Innovation & the Arts, opening September 9, 2026, and in the gallery in the Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby, Ed.D. Academic Center on October 1, 2026.
Between Here & Infinity: Celebrating 30 Years of the Spelman College Art Collection is grounded in dreaming and the Black feminist imagination, exploring ways of knowing, seeing, and creating shaped by Black women’s lived experiences. Between Here & Infinity presents artworks drawn from the permanent collection, organized by areas inspired by the layers of Earth’s atmosphere to gesture toward the vast and diverse qualities of the Black feminist imagination which shapes it: the Root, works that ground the collection in origin and tradition; the Threshold, works that evoke crossings through transitional space; the Interior, works that turn inward toward intimacy and quietude; the Expanse, works that are conceptually daring and electric in color; and the Horizon, where the past meets the future and dissolves into limitless possibility. Visitors are invited to explore the exhibition in any order they choose, taking in the collection’s range and depth.
The new Mary Schmidt Campbell Center for Innovation & the Arts (CI&A) opened in 2025 and marks a new chapter for the arts at Spelman College, which dates back to the early 1930s, when art classes were taught by Hale Woodruff and Nancy Elizabeth Prophet. “Between Here & Infinity brings a fresh view to the evolving Spelman collection, staging conversations between works across media and across time,” said Spelman Museum Director Liz Andrews. “This vibrant presentation underscores the generations of curators and artists who have dreamed this museum into existence and made it a place where Black women’s artistic expression is at the center of art history and futures.”
The new Spelman Museum CI&A Bank of America Gallery will debut its Horizon layer on September 9, highlighting the history of the arts at Spelman alongside recent acquisitions to Spelman College’s permanent art collection. Together, these works offer a dynamic perspective on the collection’s continued growth and evolving vision.
Developed in collaboration with the Spelman College Archives, the exhibition features archival materials that document the Museum’s first three decades and provide historical context for its role as a leading institution dedicated to art by and about women of the African Diaspora. The presentation illuminates the Museum’s enduring commitment to scholarship, collecting, and public engagement, while tracing the ways its collection and programming have expanded over time.
Beginning in October, the exhibition will expand into the Cosby Gallery, further illuminating the breadth and depth of Spelman’s permanent collection. Bringing together works by women from across the African Diaspora, the presentation encompasses a range of media, including sculpture, textiles, painting, photography, and mixed media. Together, the two gallery presentations celebrate the collection’s rich history while offering a forward-looking view of its continued evolution.
Artists in the exhibition include: Amalia Amaki, Emma Amos, Firelei Báez, Louisiana Bendolph, Camille Billops, Betty Blayton, Sheila Pree Bright, Iona Rozeal Brown, Sonia Boyce, Beverly Buchanan, Selma Burke, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Elizabeth Catlett, Renée Cox, Tina Dunkley, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Myra Greene, Maren Hassinger, Charnelle D. Holloway, Jenelsie Walden Holloway, Varnette Honeywood, Fabiola Jean-Louis, Marcia Kure, Samella Lewis, Valerie Maynard, Nandipha Mntambo, Zanele Muholi, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Laurie Ourlicht, Howardena Pindell, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Rachelle Puryear, Helen McBride Richter, Faith Ringgold, Deborah Roberts, Lucille Malkia Roberts, Aminah Robinson, Harmonia Rosales, Nellie Mae Rowe, Betye Saar, Berni Searle, Lorna Simpson, Phyllis Stephens, Mildred Thompson, Kelly Taylor Mitchell, Lina Iris Viktor, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Claudia Widdiss, Amanda Williams, and Billie Zangewa.
The exhibition is curated by Dr. Chaunesti Webb-Johnson, Curator of Collections at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, with Curatorial Graduate Assistant Lizette London, ABD, C’ 2017, and exhibition support from Jewell Green Design. Between Here & Infinity: Celebrating 30 Years of the Spelman College Art Collection is also organized with input from the following Spelman student curatorial interns and Museum Ambassadors – Kennedy Lambert Anderson, C’ 2027, Andrea Michelle Bright, C’ 2027, Ja'Nese Lashay Cosby C’ 2028, Naima Eggleston, C’ 2027, Sienna Sojourner Keigwin, C’ 2027, Loren Nabukenya Muwonge, C’ 2028, and Skye Elan Rawles, C’ 2027.
Support for Between Here and Infinity: Celebrating 30 Years of the Spelman College Museum is provided by the Mellon Foundation, the Lauren Amos Foundation, the Paul R. Jones Heritage Fund of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, and the Friends of the Museum Fund.
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