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March Issue 2010
Harvey B. Gantt
Center for African-American Arts + Culture in Charlotte, NC, Offers
Works by David C. Driskell
The Harvey B. Gantt
Center for African-American Arts + Culture in Charlotte, NC, is
presenting the exhibit, Evolution: Five Decades of Printmaking
by David C. Driskell, on view through June 15, 2010.
Driskell is an artist, art historian, collector, curator, educator,
and one of the most recognized and respected names in the world
of African American art and culture. This exhibition examines
the artist's stylistic growth and creative explorations through
the various styles and media employed in his printmaking over
the past five decades. He addresses themes as diverse as
those drawn from classical art and nature, to still life, portraiture,
religious, imagery and experimentation with African forms and
subjects. Through this array of prints you get a sense of Driskell's
interests, strengths, experiences, family and personal musings.
Featured pieces include Bakota Girl I & II, Echoes,
and Spirit Watching, to name a few.
Driskell has been a
practicing artist and active printmaker since the 1950's. His
works are in major museums throughout the world, including the
National Gallery of Art, the High Museum of Art, and Yale University
Art Gallery, to name a few. In 1976, Driskell curated the groundbreaking
exhibit, Two Centuries of Black American Art: 1750-1950,
which laid the foundation for the field of African American Art
History. Since 1977, Professor Driskell has served as cultural
advisor to Camille O. and William H. Cosby and as the curator
of the Cosby Collection of Fine Arts. In 2000, in a White House
Ceremony, Professor Driskell received the National Humanities
Medal from President Bill Clinton. In 2007, he was elected as
a National Academician by the National Academy.
This Gantt Center is the permanent home for the Hewitt Colletion,
one of the country's most unique and diverse private collections
of African-American art belonging to art collectors, Vivian Hewitt
and the late John Hewitt of New York City. The Hewitt Collection
includes work by many important artists, including Henry O. Tanner,
Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, John Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett,
Jonathan Green, Ronald Joseph, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith
and Hale Woodruff. The work in the collection is predominantly
figurative.
One piece, Romare Bearden's Homage to Mary Lou (1983),
is a lithograph of the image known elsewhere as The Piano Lesson.
This work was developed from an encounter Bearden and his wife,
Nanette, had with jazz musician Mary Lou Williams at an NAACP
awards banquet in Atlanta. August Wilson subsequently built his
play, The Piano Lesson, from this image.
Also on view through Mar. 28, 2010, is the exhibit, Leisure Space, featuring works by Juan Logan. The exhibit examines the historical relevance of beaches, lakesides, and river landscapes during the Jim Crow era, and the dividing lines between how whites and blacks enjoyed these types of spaces.
For further information
check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Center at
704/547-3700 or visit (www.ganttcenter.org).
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