Description

David Driskell (1931-2020), an influential art historian, teacher, and curator who advanced the cause of African American art as much as any individual, also had a long and productive career as a painter. This exhibition, co-organized by the Portland Museum of Art and the High Museum of Art, with the additional input from The Phillips Collection, will feature over 80 of Driskell’s works, ranging from paintings, drawings and prints, to the artist’s skechbooks. The curators will borrow a significant number of works from the HBCUs where Driskell taught from 1955 through 1977. The presentation will chart the evolution of Driskell’s subjects and styles, as he worked to synthesize the aesthetic innovations of European modernism with the forms he associated with Black American, and African, culture and experience. Driskell spent the last 20 years of his career at the University of Maryland, now the home to the David C. Driskell Center, a gallery and research institute dedicated African American art.