Michael A. Cummings (1945-)
A nationally recognized quilter, Michael A. Cummings (b 1945) uses his sewing machine to tell narrative stories of the African-American experience which often reference American black history.
He is a self-taught artist who taught himself how to quilt in 1973. Cummings lives in New York and has been making art for over thirty years. His vibrant colorful quilts are often embellished with found objects such as cowrie shells and hand embroidery.
He and his work has been featured on NPR’s television program “Craft in America.” His work is in numerous public collections such as the Brooklyn Museum,the Museum of Art the California African American Museum, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery.
He has won several awards for his quilts, including the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award in 2001, and he has been commissioned by various entities such as Art In Embassies, The White House, Absolut Vodka, among others.
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These posts are sponsored by the Black Art In America Foundation as part of our continuous advocacy for African-American art.
Judy Bowman (1952-)
Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Judy Bowman (b 1952) is a painter and collage artist. Though Bowman took art classes in collage, she did not resume making art until she retired. A former educator, Bowman has been receiving attention for her collages which she started making six years ago.
Memories from her childhood growing up in Detroit during the 1950s and 1960s shape many of the visual narratives in her artwork. She views herself as a visual “griot,” telling the stories of the Detroit she knew as a child.
In 2021, Bowman received a Kresge Artist Fellowship award and, in 2022, she was awarded Alain Locke Recognition Art Award. Her work is in private and institutional collections. Some of the institutions are the Detroit Institute of Arts in Detroit, Michigan, Detroit Historical Museum in Detroit Michigan, Hubert Humphrey Federal Building in Washington DC, United States Department of State, Art Bank Program ion Washington, DC, The Booth Family Center for Special Collections, Georgetown University Library, Washington, DC, the Sarasota African American Cultural Coalition in Sarasota, Florida, The Flint Institute of Arts, the R.W. Norton Museum in Shreveport, Louisiana, and the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC.
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These posts are sponsored by the Black Art In America Foundation as part of our continuous advocacy for African-American art.
Kenturah Davis (1984-)
Artist Kenturah Davis (b 1984) works in various media such as drawing, painting, textiles, sculpture, and performance. A multidisciplinary artist, Kenturah Davis works from Los Angeles, California; New Haven, Connecticut; and Accra, Ghana.
Davis earned her BA from Occidental College and a MFA from Yale University School of Art. Her work has been included in institutional exhibitions in Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe, including the Savannah College of Art and Design, Robert and Frances Museum of Art, Yale University, Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia (2015 Venice Biennale), The 2014 Yokohama Triennial (Yokohama, Japan), and the California African American Museum.
Some of the collections that Davis’s art work is in are the Walker Art Center, Hammer Museum, Blanton Museum of Art and the the Rubell Family Collection.
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These posts are sponsored by the Black Art In America Foundation as part of our continuous advocacy for African-American art.
Dave Drake (c. 1800-c. 1870s)
Artist Dave Drake also known as “Dave the Potter” (c. 1800 – c. 1870s). A master potter, Dave Drake is recognized as the first enslaved African American potter to sign his work. Most enslaved black people in America during slavery when most were illiterate . In order to keep them enslaved, it was illegal to teach slaves how to read and write, yet in some states there were no laws against reaching slaves how to read. An literate and educated black person was considered a threat to maintaining the American institution of slavery. Drake was also a poet who also inscribed poetry onto his alkaline-glazed stoneware pots. As well as crocks, pitchers, and jugs. The largest pot that he is known to make holds forty gallons Drake lived and worked in Edgefield, South Carolina where he and other enslaved black people worked as potters.
Forced black unpaid labor was not only used for picking cotton but also in other industries as well. Today, Drake’s pots sell for high prices at auctions. In 2021, Dave Drake’s 25-gallon stoneware jar sold for $1.3 million. One the Chipstone Foundation’s focuses is American American material culture which is often overlooked in America’s Eurocentric focused art museums, has an “ongoing commitment “ to teaching and collecting Drake’s work as well the work of other African American artists who are important in material culture such as Thomas Day, John Hemings, the enslaved makers of Southern face vessels, and other African-American artists, whose stories need to be told in American museums. One of the galleries located in the Milwaukee Art Museum run by the Chipstone Foundation, is named after Dave Drake. It is called the”Dave Project” Gallery. Black people had always made art throughout history and often that fact gets overlooked.
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These posts are sponsored by the Black Art In America Foundation as part of our continuous advocacy for African-American art.
Tanzania Himid (1967-)
Born in Zanzibar in 1954, Tanzania Himid is a British painter who was the first black woman to win the prestigious Turner Prize in 2017. She is also the oldest person to receive the award, which she won at the age of 63. The Turner Prize is awarded to a British artist and is presented by the Tate Museum of Art. In 2021, she won another important award—the annual Robson Orr TenTen Award.
The themes of her work focuses on black cultural history and reclaiming identities. Besides being an artist, Himid is also a curator and an professor of contemporary art at the University of Central Lancashire. During the 1980s and 1990s, she was involved in the British Black Arts Movement which existed to raise awareness and increase the profile of British black artists work.
One of Britain’s pivotal artists, Lubaina Himid’s work has been exhibited worldwide. Venues include the 2018 10th Berlin Biennale; Flag Art Foundation, New York; Modern Art Gallery, Oxford; MRAC Langeudoc Roussillon Midi-Pyrenees, Serignan, France; and the Tate Britain London.
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These posts are sponsored by the Black Art In America Foundation as part of our continuous advocacy for African-American art.
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