Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation Changing Exhibits Gallery

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Introductions

In My Father’s House is a mixed-media exhibition that focuses on collecting from the perspective of five different lived-in environments, each with a distinct era.

The title of the exhibit is inspired from a passage in the Bible found in

John 14:2, which begins “In my Father’s house there are many mansions...”

however, the context of the exhibition, while certainly spiritually evocative,

is not religious but secular in focus.

In keeping with the August Wilson Center for African American Culture’s

mission of presenting the best of both the performing and visual arts under

one roof, the five rooms of the exhibit create a dramatic vision of a single

dwelling comprised of four different “houses.” In this way, we use theatrical

convention to provide a deeper and more multi-dimensional context for

the material selected by the exhibit’s six curators.

The exhibition asks the visitor to consider the different ways of

approaching the preservation of the material culture of people of African

descent. It poses the question of what is important to keep for future

generations? What do we hold dear? What is it that we pass on to those

who come after us, and what stories do those objects tell about the

people who lived or still live in these rooms?

It is my hope that visitors to this exhibition are inspired to think critically

about their own lives and in particular what they are preserving for future

generations so that the stories of our people continue to be told house

by house, room by room.

Neil Barclay

Founding President and CEOAugust Wilson Center for African American Culture (2003-09)

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A doily, a photograph, a wooden spoon. Seemingly, these three things have nothing in common. Yet, they do. They are everyday items that have graced our homes for years.

They are things that connect us to our own past, our stories and our

upbringing. They are things that we’ve seen, touched and looked at a

million times, but never thought much about... until now.

In My Father’s House is an exhibition that focuses on the things that we use,

that we collect, that we hold sacred to tell a particular aspect of what makes

us—us. It is unique in that it encompasses an entire five room-house with

each room created, by a renowned curator, to reflect the life and times of

families, not unlike our own. Each curator has done a magnificent job in

developing his or her room and creating a back story to explain why each

family has the things it has, how those things were acquired and why they

are so special.

While the fictitious families in the exhibition are African American, the

themes of home, memory, family history and collecting are universal.

However, In My Father’s House is not only about the past, but about how

those families, their homes and their belongings affect modern-day life.

It’s also about how today’s technology has shaped how we live and interact.

On behalf of the August Wilson Center Board of Directors, I would like to

congratulate and thank the curators and The Center’s staff for all their hard

work in bringing this exhibition to fruition in our new building.

We are also grateful to our title sponsor UPMC and major supporters FedEx

Ground and H.J. Heinz Company Foundation. We appreciate their continued

support of the Pittsburgh region’s African American community and

The Center’s mission.

As you peruse the rooms of In My Father’s House, we hope your own profound

memories of family, and the things that make your house a home, are stirred.

André Kimo Stone Guess

President & CEOAugust Wilson Center for African American Culture

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Collector’s Story

All photographs were reproduced with the knowledge and prior consent of the following individuals:

Muriel Fox Alim

Charlene Foggie Barnett

Joyce E. Baucum

Christine Bethea

Ernest Bey

Joachim Boko

Aboubacar Oscar Camara

Sarah Williams-Devereux

Tracy Edmunds

Carmen Ellington

Elnora & Walter Fortson

Ron Garland

Robert W. Goode

Roberta Goode-Wilburn & Ronald Goode

Velma Griggs

Mayota Hill

Michelle Jones

Erika Gentry Lagana

Gail Manker

Mary Martin

Julianne McAdoo

Sharon Mohale

Sharon Morris

Saihou Njie

Denise Owens

Shirley Page

James Perkins

Minerva Pilachowski

Lorraine W. Poindexter

Aisha Sani

Brenda Simpson

Millicent Smith

Dawn Webb Turner

Martha Agedew Vasser

Valeria Williams

Janis Burley Wilson

This entryway installation is created to display the images of a Pittsburgh Collector of Memories. In this space, individuals

will view a “gathering of images” representing a cross section of Pittsburgh’s

diverse and multifaceted African American community. The photos originate

from the private collections of these Pittsburgh families. They depict native

Pittsburghers, as well as immigrant families, linking Pittsburgh to the African

Diaspora. The entryway of family photos attests to migrations from Benin,

Ethiopia, Gambia, Jamaica, New Guinea, Nigeria, South Africa and Trinidad.

The aim of the Collector is to reflect her values, familiarity with, and

spiritual connection between the viewer and who is being viewed. This

entryway transcends a specific time period, giving each photo a unique

narrative. Just as other rooms of this “house” are meant to be a reflection

of various households, each portrait on display in the entryway could

potentially be the image of an inhabitant of this “house.”

Photography plays a significant role in capturing a genuine account of

how African Americans view themselves. Each image captures a particular

moment, documenting the everyday life, celebratory occasions and rare

candid moments of African American families. The installation of images

reflects the distinction, pride, and dignity of shared experiences. The images

selected are both candid and staged photos taken from within the home

(defining family life), or in a photographer’s studio (representing a more

controlled environment where the individual dictates how he/she wants

to be remembered). A collection of visual memories becomes a collage of

images—each a distinct story interpreting the complexities of African

American experiences.

Mary MartinArt Instructor Winchester Thurston School

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The Collector of Memories

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Collector’s Story

At the turn of the century, Tom and Mary Graham

journeyed from Hickory, N.C. to Charleroi, Pa., which

although a mere 30 miles north of the Mason-Dixon Line

must have seemed like a world away. They came with

their teenage daughters, Dora, Addie and Lizzie. Lizzie and

Addie worked for two of the wealthy white families. Dora

commuted to Greensburg where she worked for a doctor

before getting a job at the Corning Glass Factory in

Monessen. Large numbers of blacks worked in the iron

and glass industry between 1919 and 1930.

Working in Monessen, Dora met her future husband Floyd,

who was half black and half Blackfoot and one of the few

men of color in the American Federation of Labor. They

borrowed $900 from her mother to purchase a house in

the Hill District. The couple became faithful readers of the

Pittsburgh Courier, one of the largest black newspapers

in the country, founded by Robert L. Vann in 1910.

Certainly, the masthead, “work, integrity, tact, temperance,

prudence, courage, faith,” applied to them.

They loved the portraits of black life captured by Courier

photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris, who joined the

paper full-time in 1936, after having worked there

as a freelancer. They even had a family portrait taken at

his studio on Centre Avenue. Their children inherited

this home and passed it on to their children, who kept

ownership but rented it to a cousin.

This installation explores a typical Pittsburgh home and how life in this house has played a key role in shaping values about family, identity, place, and community. By incorporating artifacts and personal stories in this installation of common

and daily life objects, we hope to bring forth ideas found in the spirit of the

plays by August Wilson.

There are multiple intergenerational stories found in our installation. This

room imagines the life of an extended family who lived in the house in the

Hill District from 1922 to the present. Art is the successful communication

of a particular human experience. In constructing these tableaux, we mean

to help the viewer transcend a common viewing experience and begin to

think about ways to communicate ideas about their own life.

The objects in this room are used to engage the viewer in a way that a

conventional exhibition of images cannot, allowing access to the viewer,

by engaging the senses and providing the visitor with an idea that personal

memory is a stimulus for storytelling. By using images and sound, we hope

to transport the viewer in time and space in an attempt to immerse the

visitor in an environment that will relate directly to their own personal

experience in a meaningful way, thereby rendering this work more powerful

and relevant for every single visitor.

Lonnie GrahamProfessor of Integrative Arts and Photography The Pennsylvania State University, School of Visual Arts

Deborah Willis, Ph.D.Professor of Photography and ImagingNew York University Tisch School of the Arts

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Material Culture

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Collector’s Story

He was his parents’ bright shining prince. The one who

would reap the full benefit of the opportunities they

traveled to Pittsburgh to find. Migrant workers in Palatka,

Florida, they left there and settled in the Hill District,

where their son was born in 1935. They were part of

the great migration of blacks from the South to northern

industrial cities full of promise. His father was a steelworker,

his mother a nurse. They wanted nothing more for their

son than for him to become a doctor or a lawyer. At his

parents’ insistence, he attended Howard, went on to dental

school and became a dentist.

Then the revolution came—the Black Power Movement—

he abandoned his practice and became part of it. Choosing

to live as an ex-patriot led him to Jamaica for a while.

There he met a fierce Jamaican woman as passionate about

the struggle as he. Eventually, he returned to Pittsburgh

with her. Their kitchen becomes the “situation room,”

the place where he and his comrades talk revolution, plan

rallies and craft speeches. It is also her domain, as she earns

a living catering for local rallies. In their kitchen, books

about cooking share space with books about struggle

and revolution.

Inspired by the August Wilson play Two Trains Running, this room invites the viewer to experience a sensorial dimension of African American history and culture from the Black Power era to the present. The aroma of spices from

far away Mauritius beckon the taste buds to imagine a savory gumbo that

fortifies the body both spiritually and culturally. An altar pays homage to the

heroes and she-roes of black liberation struggles, while a jukebox plays some

of their more memorable speeches and anthems. A library of significant texts

nurture the minds of the gregarious activist couple that occupy this space with

its focus on education, Africa and its diasporas. Prints, photographs, video,

material objects and sculpture enliven every corner of the room suggesting

both a tactile and a visual dimension to the narrative. The kitchen table

provides a space to strengthen familial bonds while commemorating the

fruition of the long-held dreams of black people.

Cheryl Finley, Ph.D.Assistant Professor of African American and African Diaspora ArtDepartment of History of Art and Visual StudiesCornell University

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African/African Diaspora

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Collector’s Story

This room is inspired by the collecting habits of African

American art collectors in Pittsburgh as well as around

the nation. The room represents the joint collection of a

father, John Johnson, and his daughter, Barbara Johnson.

Born in 1910, John Johnson came of age during the

Harlem Renaissance. John was the only child of relatively

middle-class parents. His mother worked as a seamstress

and his father in the local steel mills. John’s parents worked

hard to save enough money to send their child to college

and in 1929, he enrolled at Howard University, where

he became the first person in his family to earn a college

degree. He went on to earn a medical degree as well.

John’s experience at Howard opened his eyes to a world of

possibilities. He became particularly interested in art and

took classes from such luminaries as Lois Mailou Jones,

James V. Herring, and later, James Porter who introduced

him to what was then called “Negro Art.” After John’s

graduation, he moved back to Pittsburgh, married,

established a thriving medical practice, and began to

avidly collect art by African Americans. John made a

special effort to expose his daughter Barbara to the arts.

She grew up surrounded by pieces from his collection,

going to art museums, meeting African American artists,

and taking art history classes in college. Having come of

age during the 1960s, Barbara became very interested in

the Black Arts Movement and Abstraction. Following in

her father’s footsteps, Barbara became a doctor. Upon

her father’s death, she took over his practice and moved

into the family home. Although rarely used for formal

entertaining, Barbara often visits this room where she

marvels at how the visual combination of her mother’s

furnishings and her and her father’s art collections fill her

with a sense of pride and joy related to what her father

used to call the “collecting spirit.”

I created this room to show that the practice of celebrating and collecting art by African American artists has a long and multifaceted history in the black community. This historical tradition is best exemplified in the art

collections of historically black colleges and universities, African American

galleries and museums, and perhaps most importantly, in the homes of

African American art enthusiasts from all walks of life.

African Americans have expressed themselves within a visual construct from

the time our African ancestors first set foot on American soil to the present

day. Throughout our history in this country we have saved, cherished, and

proudly displayed the fruits of our visual creativity in all of its manifestations,

including walking canes, basketry, quilts, ceramics, furniture, textiles,

drawings, paintings, and sculpture.

Historically, patronage of the arts has been a pastime traditionally reserved

for the most elite and wealthiest segments of American society. Within the

African American community writ large, however, some of the most esteemed

black art collections have been amassed by people who represent a variety of

backgrounds, from the most humble to the most privileged. In most cases,

African American art collectors are not particularly wealthy, but rather work

to earn a living in positions such as college and university professors, postal

workers, teachers, small business owners, lawyers, and government employees.

The African American Masters gallery was created to explore, through their

art collection, the fictional story of a father and daughter who lived and

worked in Pittsburgh.

Tuliza Fleming, Ph.D.Curatorial Consultant and Museum CuratorSmithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

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African American Masters

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Collector’s Story

The family who lives here are black Westerners meaning

they were educated in the West but have a global

perspective and a special appreciation for their African

roots. The mother and father are both professors

and second-generation college-educated. Her Ph.D.

dissertation was on Negritude. He has a Ph.D. in

Philosophy, specifically Marxist thought.

Their home is wired and their personal library contains

more than 3,000 books. Their daughter, 16, wants to be

an architect and is adept at using the software CAD

(Computer-Aided Design). Like most boys his age, their

14-year-old son is a video game expert who attends tech

camp every year to learn video game programming. Each

member of the family also blogs.

They consider themselves citizens of the world, equally

at home in Paris or in Senegal. Their overarching family

philosophy is “for those who have been given more, more

is expected.”

James Baldwin once said that black Americans are the only black Westerners. For me that means confronting and transforming

(as compared to “transcending”) the complexities of what Toni Morrison calls

the multiplicity of consciousness.

As computers become more complex, they also become more and more

non-linear; challenging Western concepts of what is “rational” or “logical.”

Indeed, it is not lost on me as a female black Westerner that I’ve been allowed

to find my voice within the medium of technology. That technology, which

allows me to create in the modality of past, present and future, is only one

aspect of the journey Africans took when they came to these shores and their

method of communicating was through the drums.

I stand, at this particular point in history, as part of the continuum of black

thought and expression. As I work, I still hear in my “soul” those “drums”

and I am privileged, as a black westerner living in the 21st century, to

communicate in zeros and ones, the language of computer code,

programming and technology.

Demetria RoyalsProducer/DirectorDirector’s Guild Of America

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From Drums to Zeroes and Ones

Curators

Cheryl FinleyDr. Cheryl Finley was named one of Cornell University’s “young faculty

innovators” by the Office of the Vice Provost for Research in October 2009.

An Assistant Professor in the History of Art Department, Dr. Finley is

also an art critic, columnist and curator specializing in photography,

African American art, heritage tourism and memory politics.

She joined the Cornell faculty in 2004, after holding visiting positions at

Wellesley (where she also was an adjunct curator of the Davis Museum and

Cultural Center) and Cornell (where she held an appointment in Art History

and Visual Culture at the Africana Studies Research Center).

She is the author of many books, articles and essays, including Diaspora,

Memory, Place: David Hammons, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Pamela Z

(Prestel, 2008), a book of collected essays from the critically acclaimed

exhibition 3x3: Three Artists/Three Projects, which she co-curated with

Salah Hassan for the 2004 Dak’Art Biennial of Contemporary African

Art in Dakar, Senegal.

Dr. Finley is the co-founder with Dr. Laura Wexler of Photographic

Memory Workshop at Yale University in 1998, where she also received her

doctorate in the departments of African American Studies and History

of Art in 2002. At Cornell, Dr. Finley teaches courses on film, African diaspora

art, museum studies and contemporary art. The recipient of numerous awards

and grants, her research has been supported by an Alphonse Fletcher Sr.

Fellowship, the Ford Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the

Visual Arts and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, among others.

Her forthcoming manuscripts include Committed to Memory: the Slave

Ship Icon in the Black Atlantic Imagination (Princeton University Press) and

a monograph on Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons (UCLA Chicano Studies

Research Center/University of Minnesota Press).

Tuliza Fleming Dr. Tuliza Fleming is a Museum Curator at the National Museum of African

American History and Culture (NMAAHC), Smithsonian Institution. She

received her bachelor’s from Spelman College in 1994 and her master’s and

doctorate in American art history from the University of Maryland, College

Park in 1997 and 2007, respectively.

In her current capacity, Dr. Fleming is responsible for researching,

curating and scripting museum exhibitions, locating objects for the museum’s

collection by working with potential donors, creating the collections plan for

the museum’s visual art collection, assisting with the acquisition of objects

for the popular culture collection and contributing to the development of the

Center of African American Media Arts. Most recently, Dr. Fleming was the

co-curator and contributing essayist for the NMAAHC’s traveling exhibition

and book titled Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing: How The Apollo Theater

Shaped American Entertainment.

Prior to joining the NMAAHC, Dr. Fleming was the Associate Curator

and head of the American Art Department at The Dayton Art Institute

in Dayton, Ohio. During her nearly five-year tenure there, Dr. Fleming

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curated 17 in-house and traveling exhibitions including Around the Bend:

Monumental Steel Sculptures by Bret Price (2006), The Art of Louis Comfort

Tiffany (2003), and Monet and the Age of American Impressionism (2003).

She has also served as curator for more than 30 exhibitions and worked

in and consulted for a variety of museums and cultural institutions

including: The Taft Museum of Art, The Cincinnati Museum Center, The

DuSable Museum of African American History, the National Underground

Railroad Freedom Center, The National Museum of American History and

the National Gallery of Art.

Lonnie GrahamLonnie Graham is a Pew Fellow and Associate Professor at The Pennsylvania

State University. Prior to his current position, he worked as the Director of

Photography at Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild in Pittsburgh, PA, an urban

arts organization dedicated to arts and education for at-risk youth. There,

Professor Graham developed innovative pilot projects merging arts and

academics, which were ultimately cited by, then-First Lady Hillary Clinton

as a National Model for Arts Education.

In 1996, he was commissioned to create the “African/American Garden

Project,” which provided a physical and cultural exchange of disadvantaged

urban single mothers in Pittsburgh, and farmers from Muguga, a small

farming village in Kenya, to build a series of urban subsistence gardens.

In 2005, Professor Graham was named Artist of the Year in the

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and was presented the Governor’s Award

by former Gov. Edward Rendell. Professor Graham serves as a panel member

for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for

the Arts in Washington, DC. He is also the recipient of a National Endowment

for the Arts/Pew Charitable Trust Travel Grant for travel to Ghana and is a

four-time recipient of the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts Fellowship.

Professor Graham was also awarded the Creative Achievement Award by

The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.

Professor Graham’s work includes an exhibition of photographs at Goethe

Institute, Accra Ghana; a full-scale reproduction of one of the educational

galleries in the Barnes Foundation shown at La Maison de Etat-Unis, Paris,

France; an exhibition of larger-than-life photographs at the Toyota City

Museum in Aichi, Japan as well as a room-sized installation featured at the

Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Graham’s work can be found

in the permanent collections of the Addison Gallery of American Art in

Andover, MA and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in Philadelphia, PA.

Professor Graham’s art, artifacts and his collection of African American

art is used primarily for the room that he and Dr. Deborah Willis were

co-curators for this exhibition.

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Curators (continued)

Mary MartinMary Martin is a native Pittsburgh artist and art educator. She received

her bachelor’s degrees in both Architecture and Fine Arts from the Rhode

Island School of Design. Ms. Martin is currently an art instructor at the

Winchester-Thurston School. She has also worked for the Senator John Heinz

History Center, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, as well as various Pittsburgh

Public Schools and other regional arts organizations. Her artwork in many

media, including ceramic, collage, printmaking and glass works, has been

exhibited in art galleries and cultural institutions across the country.

Locally, she is Vice President of Women of Visions, Inc., a Pittsburgh-

based arts collective of African American women visual artists. She also is an

active member of the Yan Taru Muslim Women’s Educational and Charitable

organization. She is actively involved in coordinating and collaborating on

educational programming, grant writing, and special project initiatives for

organizations including Women of Visions, Inc., Society for Contemporary

Craft, August Wilson Center for African American Culture, and the Islamic

Center of Pittsburgh’s Weekend School. An advisor for the August Wilson

Center’s programming committee, she has also been a curator for and

consulted on various art exhibits in the region.

She has served as a panelist for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts,

the Howard Heinz Endowments Small Grants Initiative and the August

Wilson Center Fellowship Program.

Demetria RoyalsDemetria Royals is an award-wining director, writer, producer and educator.

She is an award-winning independent filmmaker, adept at designing

filmmaking curriculum using digital, new media and other emerging/

cutting-edge artistic disciplines. Ms. Royals is a critical thinker, collaborator

and strategic thought partner whose work has received support from the

Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation

for Public Broadcasting, the National Black Programming Consortium,

the Independent Television Service and the American Film Institute,

among others.

Ms. Royals directed and co-edited the performance/arts documentary,

“BrotherMen” broadcast nationally on PBS (2001) and currently distributed

by WQED Video. Ms. Royals was a 1999 artist-in-residence at the Institute on

the Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard University.

She received an additional residency award, “Artist as Catalyst 2000,” from

the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, as well as grants from the Rockefeller

Foundation Multi-Arts Production Fund and the National Endowment for

the Arts Multidisciplinary Arts Program, to direct a collaborative adaptation

of Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage.” Ms. Royals is the recipient of a

fellowship from the Writers Guild of America as well as a New York

Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in video and a writing development

grant from The Funding Exchange Women’s Project Scriptwriting

Development Fund for her first dramatic feature.

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A member in the Directors Guild of America, Ms. Royals earned her

master’s in fine arts from New York University’s Graduate Institute of Film

and Television and a bachelor’s in journalism and philosophy also from

New York University. She was a research fellow at the Studio for Creative

Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University as well as Professor of media arts

production at Ramapo College of New Jersey for 10 years. From 2001 to 2008,

she served as a professor and director of the film program at Sarah Lawrence

College. She left that post to go full-time into production of a documentary

on the New York foster care system, titled “Quis custodiet ipsos custodies,

Who Watches the Watchers.”

Deborah WillisListed among the “100 Most Important People in Photography” by

American Photography Magazine, Dr. Deborah Willis is Chair and Professor

of Photography and Imaging at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University,

where she also has an affiliated appointment with the College of Arts and

Sciences, Africana Studies.

A 2005 Guggenheim and Fletcher Fellow, a 2000 MacArthur Fellow,

1996 recipient of the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation Award and

an exhibiting artist, she is one of the nation’s leading historians of African

American photography and curator of African American culture.

Some of her notable projects include Reflections in Black: A History of

Black Photographers—1840 to the Present, A Small Nation of People: W.E.B.

DuBois and African American Portraits of Progress, The Black Female Body in

Photography, and Let Your Motto be Resistance.

Her most recent works are Posing Beauty—African American Images from

the 1890s to the Present, Michelle Obama, The First Lady in Photographs and

Black Venus 2010: They Called Her “Hottentot” (editor). Michelle Obama, The

First Lady in Photographs garnered Dr. Willis the 2010 NAACP Image Award

for Outstanding Literary Work—Biography/Autobiography, and she is

the 2010 recipient of The Society of Photographic Education’s National

Conference’s Honored Educator Award.

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Featured Artists

Romare Bearden (1911–1988)

One of the most prolific and highly-acclaimed artists of his generation,

Romare Bearden was born in North Carolina, but lived in Pittsburgh, Harlem

and the Caribbean Island of St. Maarten, and used those experiences as well

as music, literature and history to inspire his work. His piece, The Piano

Lesson, included in this exhibition, was the inspiration for the August Wilson’s

Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name. Also included in this exhibit,

the well-known piece Pittsburgh Memories, loaned by the Carnegie Museum

of Art, Pittsburgh. Bearden, who earned a degree in education from New

York University, studied at the Art Student League in New York and at

The Sarbonne in Paris. His work, which has been exhibited throughout the

United States and Europe, is part of many public collections including

the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Studio Museum of Harlem and

the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Frank Bowling (1936– )

Internationally recognized and one of Britain’s most distinguished artists,

Frank Bowling was elected as a member of the Royal Academy of Art in

2005, the first Black British artist to hold such a position in that institution’s

200-year history. Born in Guyana, South America, he moved to England as

a teenager and graduated from the Royal College of Art in London in 1962,

along with famed British pop movement artists David Hockney, Derek Bossier

and Peter Phillips. He moved to New York in 1966 and five years later won a

place in the 1971 Whitney Biennial. He has been a lecturer and teacher at in

the U.S. and in England, including Rutgers University, the School of Visual

Arts in New York and the Maidstone College of Art in Kent and the Byham

Shaw in London. His works are part of the permanent collections at the

Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney

Museum in the U.S. and the Tate Gallery, Lloyds of London and the

V & A Museum in the UK.

Herbert Gentry (1919–2003)

A world renowned artist, Herbert Gentry’s work was deeply influenced by

his life experience as a world traveler and by the writers, artists, musicians

and great minds he met along the way—including Duke Ellington, Richard

Wright, Jean-Paul Sartre, Romare Bearden, Beauford Delaney and Larry Rivers

among others. Born in Pittsburgh, he was raised in Harlem during its cultural

heyday. As a soldier during World War II, he traveled to Europe and returned

to Paris to study art in 1946 at Academie de le Grande Chaumiere. Later, he

exhibited and worked in Copenhagen and eventually moved to Stockholm,

Sweden, but always kept a place in Paris. He returned to New York City in

1969 establishing a residence in the famed Chelsea Hotel, but continuing to

paint and exhibit both here and across the Atlantic.

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Norman W. Lewis (1909–1979)

Norman Lewis was an award-winning abstract expressionist artist, scholar

and teacher. Born in Harlem, he became a member of the 306 Group, a group

of artists that included Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Ralph Ellison and

Charles Alston. In 1955, one of his best known works, Migrating Birds, won

the Popular Prize at the Carnegie Museum’s Carnegie International. Among

his many awards, Lewis received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fellowship

from the National Endowment for the Arts and a grant from the Mark

Rothko Foundation.

Chris Ofili (1968– )

Perhaps best known for the use of dried elephant dung and the controversy

it caused at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1999, Chris Ofili, challenges a

myriad of cultural stereotypes in his work. Born in Manchester, England, he

references his Nigerian roots as well as hip hop and blaxploitation films in

pieces that also include layers of paint, resin, glitter and the aforementioned

dung. His painting, Holy Virgin Mary, sparked outrage from some including

New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, because it portrayed a black Virgin Mary

surrounded by images of blaxploitation films, female genitalia and elephant

dung. Giuliani ended up filing a lawsuit against the museum. Ofili, a winner

of the Tate Gallery’s Turner Prize in 1998, has had his work exhibited in the

Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, the Contemporary Arts Museum in

Houston, Texas; the St. Petersburg Russian Museum; Carnegie Museum

of Art and the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

Hank Willis Thomas (1976– )

A photo conceptual artist, Hank Willis Thomas works primarily with themes

related to identity, history and popular culture. He received his bachelor’s

of fine arts from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and his

master’s degrees in photography and visual criticism from California College

of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco. Thomas has acted as a visiting professor

at CCA, Maryland Institute College of Art and ICP/Bard and has lectured at

Yale University, Princeton University, the Birmingham Museum of Art and

the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. His work has been featured in many

publications including Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers

1840 to the Present, 25 under 25: Up-and-Coming American Photographers

and 30 Americans. His monograph, Pitch Blackness, was published by

Aperture in 2008. He received a new media fellowship through the Tribeca

Film Institute and was an artist in residence at Johns Hopkins University.

He has exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. and abroad

including Galerie Anne De Villepoix, Paris; the Goodman Gallery in

Johannesburg; the Studio Museum in Harlem; Harvey B. Gantt Center,

in Charlotte; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and the

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford.

29

Art & Artifact Loan AcknowledgmentsSharif Bey, Ph.D.Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Temple University Libraries Carnegie Museum of ArtCarnegie Museum of Art Charles “Teenie” Harris Archives Charles “Teenie” Harris, Jr.Dr. Judith & Ronald R. Davenport Dorothy Davis Donnie Day PomeroyJamela DonaldsonDr. and Mrs. Walter O. Evans & Savannah College of Art and DesignCheryl Finley, Ph.D. Phyllis GalemboLonnie GrahamAda Gay Griffin

August Wilson Center for African American CultureNeil A. Barclay, Founding President & CEOJoyce E. Baucum, Exhibitions Associate Carmen Ellington, Manager of Executive AffairsAda Gay Griffin, Director of Annual GivingRyan Holandes, Exhibitions Associate (2007–09)T Keaton-Woods, Program Manager (2008–09)Shaunda Miles, Director of Programming & CultivationErin O’Neill, Exhibitions Manager & RegistrarPam Quatchak, Director of Marketing & Communications (2006–10)Treshea N. Wade, Manager, Marketing & CommunicationsShay Wafer, Vice President of Programs (2007–10)

CuratorsCheryl Finley, Ph.D., CuratorTuliza Fleming Ph.D., CuratorLonnie Graham, CuratorMary Martin, Curator & Local Resource ConsultantDemetria Royals, Curator/ArtistDeborah Wills, Ph.D., CuratorDonnie Day Pomeroy, Curatorial Assistant

Exhibition Design & FabricationSpringboard/COLAB Joint VenturePaul Rosenblatt, Design Principal, SpringboardFelecia Davis, Exhibit Development Principal, COLABCarpenter ConnectionBrie Daigle, Transport Consulting International

SupportUPMCH.J. Heinz Company FoundationPennsylvania Council on the ArtsPennsylvania Historical and Museum CommissionAllegheny Regional Asset DistrictPittsburgh Foundation

From Drums to Zeros and Ones” supported by FedEx Ground

photography: Lonnie Grahampublications consultant: Monica Haynes

© 2011, August Wilson Center for African American Culture

Acknowledgments

Karen HanchettSharon HowardLevin FurnitureG. & C. N’NamdiErin O’NeillRugs AmericaJack Shainman GalleryCecile Springer Bill StricklandDiane Turner Lewis Tanner MooreDr. Nancy Washington & Milton A. WashingtonCarrie Mae WeemsDeborah Willis Ph.D.Pamela Z.

“

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