{"id":8975,"date":"2021-02-16T03:59:37","date_gmt":"2021-02-16T03:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=8975"},"modified":"2021-02-16T03:59:58","modified_gmt":"2021-02-16T03:59:58","slug":"baia-bits-benny-andrews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=8975","title":{"rendered":"BAIA BITS: Benny Andrews"},"content":{"rendered":"

BAIA BITS: Benny Andrews<\/b><\/h2>\n

Little Moments Where Knowledge Meets Art<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n

\u201c<\/span>Actually, in my case, racism was just one of the many problems I had. I had a class problem, too, you see. My family was probably one of the poorest<\/span><\/i>\u2026\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These are the words of 20<\/span>th<\/span> century artist, Benny Andrews, son of a sharecropper. Andrews grew up in a poor family in rural Georgia where he spent long days helping his father in the field. Even so, his dad taught him to draw, and when he could make it to school, the capable young artist would draw biology and plane geometry projects for his teachers. Later, after serving in the Korean War and becoming a<\/span> student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Andrews moved to New York and started a painting practice, specializing in<\/span> oil and collage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Upon his first solo exhibition in 1962 at New York\u2019s Forum Gallery, Andrews\u2019 reputation grew as a talented and socially conscious artist.<\/span> Dedicated to not just making art but integrating it with activism,<\/span> he ran art education programs for underserved students through Queens College and established a pilot program for teaching art in prisons. In January 1969, after a Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit omitted the contributions of African American painters and sculptors to the Harlem community,<\/span> Andrews cofounded the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, a group demanding increased representation for people of color in art museums and the historical canon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Andrews would continue to be socially active and promote art education while teaching<\/span> at Queens College through the 1990s. <\/span>Late in life, he illustrated numerous children’s books on such African American icons as Langston Hughes and John Lewis. In 2013, seven years after Andrews\u2019 death, Lewis remembered the extraordinary artist in the foreword to the<\/span> exhibition catalog,\u00a0<\/span>Benny Andrews: There Must Be a Heaven<\/span><\/i>:<\/span><\/p>\n

“For Benny there was no line where his activism ended, and his art began,\u201d offered Lewis. \u201dTo him, using his brush and his pen to capture the essence and spirit of his time was as much an act of protest as sitting-in or sitting-down was for me. I can see him now: thinking, speaking, articulating what needs to be done and in the next few moments trying to make real what he had been contemplating. He was honest to a fault, and I think it was his determination to speak the plain truth that shaped his demand for justice and social integrity. He never aligned with any political group, but would offer the full weight of his support to anyone he thought was standing for truth.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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BAIA BITS are produced in part by the generous support of our Patreon members with a special shout out to Zadig & Voltaire.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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\"\"Stephanie Robinson, Esq.<\/strong>\u00a0is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, a national media figure, author, former Chief Counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and former President and CEO of The Jamestown Project, a national think tank focusing on democracy.\u00a0\u00a0Ms. Robinson hosted her own national radio show,\u00a0Roundtable with Stephanie Robinson<\/em>, a popular weekly 30-minute, talk-radio program focused on culture, politics, and relationships that aired on TSN.\u00a0\u00a0For over half a decade, Ms. Robinson was Political and Social Commentator for the\u00a0Tom Joyner Morning Show<\/em>\u00a0where she spoke to between 9 and 10 million people weekly, offering her perspective on the day\u2019s most pressing social and political issues.<\/p>\n

Robinson is co-author of\u00a0Accountable: Making America as Good as Its Promise<\/u>, (Atria Books, 2009). She is a nationally recognized expert on issues relating to social policy, women, race, family, and electoral politics.\u00a0\u00a0She was featured as one of the 30 Young Leaders of the Future in Ebony Magazine and was profiled in the book\u00a0As I Am: Young African American Women in a Critical Age<\/u>, by Julian Okwu.\u00a0\u00a0Robinson is a frequent speaker expressing her views in countless media outlets including the\u00a0Associated Press, The Washington Post, C-Span, Fox News, NewsOne\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0NPR<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Stephanie was a Member of President Clinton\u2019s first Mission to Africa regarding children orphaned by AIDS. Robinson, a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Maryland and the Harvard Law School, is a native of Steubenville, Ohio. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two sons.<\/p>\n

Would you buy stock in BAIA if you could? Well we invite you to join us in becoming a monthly supporter, starting at just $3 a month\u00a0YOU<\/b> become a stakeholder and begin to help us transform lives through art. We are growing the BAIA team and will use your contributions to hire more team members for the purpose of creating more educational and marketing resources for schools and universities about african american artists both past and present. Such art initiatives and educational programming like Blacklite with Steve Prince, Relating to Art with Dr. Kelli Morgan, and BAIA BITS would not be possible without the ongoing support of our Patreon members. Please consider becoming a monthly Patreon member today!
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