One of those early supporters was Jan Petry (1939-2024), a Chicago advertising executive who filled her home with outsider art. Petry bequeathed 47 works, some by anonymous artists-including an Odd Fellows carved wood staff dating from 1880-and others by Emery Blagdon, James Castle, Ulysses Davis, Charles Dellschau, William Hawkins, Martín Ramírez, Günther Schützenhöfer and Leopold Strobl. Charles Dellschau, Fall Not, 1920 Collection of Intuit Art Museum, gift of Jan Petry and Angie Mills
Sylvia Snowden has a curiosity about the human condition that begets active, engrossing paintings. Her canvases hover delicately between figuration and abstraction, evoking abundant movement and energy. Standing before the artworks feels electric - like something in you is being activated, previously suppressed emotions riled to attention. Snowden and I met in November, after her solo exhibition opened at White Cube New York.
Even the estate of an artist as acclaimed as Romare Bearden has trouble tracking down the thousands of works he made over the course of his five-decade career. Known as one of America's foremost collagists, Bearden created a distinctive style that can often be easily recognizable, but tracking down every single work he made, including ones not in that mode, can be a difficult task, especially when it comes to compiling a catalogue raisonné for the artist.
SALEM - The final exhibition to fill the main gallery at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art this year is a delightfully eclectic collection of postwar African American art that is every bit as interesting as the story of how it came together is inspiring.
At a time when many of the civil rights milestones achieved by previous generations-by our mothers and grandmothers-are being threatened or dismantled, the Driskell Prize empowers Black artists and art historians to push back.