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Beauty Born of Struggle: The Art of Black Washington, Volume 83 (Volume 83)
A collection of illustrated essays highlights the works of influential Black artists from Washington, DC, from the 1920s to the present
In a twentieth century during which modern art largely abandoned beauty as its imperative, a group of Black artists from Washington, DC, made beauty the center of their art making. This book highlights these influential artists, including David C. Driskell, Sam Gilliam, Lois Mailou Jones, and Alma Thomas, in the context of what Jeffrey C. Stewart describes as the Washington Black Renaissance. Vibrant histories of key District institutions and the city’s communities of educators, critics, and collectors animate a nuanced consideration of the evolution of an aesthetic dialectic from the 1920s up to the present day. The 15 essays in the volume are grounded by voices from a live artist panel at the National Gallery of Art in 2017, which included Lilian Thomas Burwell, Floyd Coleman, David C. Driskell, Sam Gilliam, Keith Morrison, Martin Puryear, Sylvia Snowden, and Lou Stovall.
Published by the National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts/Distributed by Yale University Press
In a twentieth century during which modern art largely abandoned beauty as its imperative, a group of Black artists from Washington, DC, made beauty the center of their art making. This book highlights these influential artists, including David C. Driskell, Sam Gilliam, Lois Mailou Jones, and Alma Thomas, in the context of what Jeffrey C. Stewart describes as the Washington Black Renaissance. Vibrant histories of key District institutions and the city’s communities of educators, critics, and collectors animate a nuanced consideration of the evolution of an aesthetic dialectic from the 1920s up to the present day. The 15 essays in the volume are grounded by voices from a live artist panel at the National Gallery of Art in 2017, which included Lilian Thomas Burwell, Floyd Coleman, David C. Driskell, Sam Gilliam, Keith Morrison, Martin Puryear, Sylvia Snowden, and Lou Stovall.
Published by the National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts/Distributed by Yale University Press
368 pages, Hardcover
Published January 31, 2023
10 people want to read
About the author
Jeffrey C. Stewart
17 books30 followersJeffrey C. Stewart is a professor of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Jeffrey C. Stewart is a graduate of Yale University, where he received his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in American Studies. He was Director of Research at the Smithsonian Institution's Anacostia Museum, a curator at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, and a senior advisor to the Reginald Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture in Baltimore, Maryland. The author of numerous articles, essays and books, Dr. Stewart has taught at Harvard University, Yale University, UCLA, Tufts University, Howard University, Scripps College, and George Mason University before coming to the University of California at Santa Barbara as Professor and Chair of the Department of Black Studies from 2008-2016. During his tenure as chair, he launched an international three day conference, "1968: A Global Year of Student Driven Change," that brought more than 40 activists, scholars, and artists to campus to discuss the activist, critical, aesthetic, and educational implications of 1968 http://www.blackstudies.ucsb.edu/1968/; an outdoor exhibit called the North Hall Display to commemorate the events of 1968 takeover of North Hall that transformed the UCSB curriculum and campus climate; and Jeffrey's Jazz Coffeehouse, a pop-up jazz club situated in a local eatery to reconfigure space with jazz aesthetics--now occurring at Aladdin in Isla Vista. https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?....
Stewart's most recent publication is “Beyond Category: Before Afro-Futurism there was Norman Lewis,” in Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, November 2015), an exhibition catalogue that won the 2017 Alfred H. Barr Award of the College Art Association http://www.collegeart.org/news/2017/0....
Jeffrey C. Stewart is a graduate of Yale University, where he received his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in American Studies. He was Director of Research at the Smithsonian Institution's Anacostia Museum, a curator at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, and a senior advisor to the Reginald Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture in Baltimore, Maryland. The author of numerous articles, essays and books, Dr. Stewart has taught at Harvard University, Yale University, UCLA, Tufts University, Howard University, Scripps College, and George Mason University before coming to the University of California at Santa Barbara as Professor and Chair of the Department of Black Studies from 2008-2016. During his tenure as chair, he launched an international three day conference, "1968: A Global Year of Student Driven Change," that brought more than 40 activists, scholars, and artists to campus to discuss the activist, critical, aesthetic, and educational implications of 1968 http://www.blackstudies.ucsb.edu/1968/; an outdoor exhibit called the North Hall Display to commemorate the events of 1968 takeover of North Hall that transformed the UCSB curriculum and campus climate; and Jeffrey's Jazz Coffeehouse, a pop-up jazz club situated in a local eatery to reconfigure space with jazz aesthetics--now occurring at Aladdin in Isla Vista. https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?....
Stewart's most recent publication is “Beyond Category: Before Afro-Futurism there was Norman Lewis,” in Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, November 2015), an exhibition catalogue that won the 2017 Alfred H. Barr Award of the College Art Association http://www.collegeart.org/news/2017/0....
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