“What I wanted to learn to do as a young person was to make a really good painting, a really tough painting…to make art that had balls; not so much that it would change the world, but to have the balls to be beautiful.” Mary Lovelace O’Neal Mary Lovelace O’Neal grew up in the South … Continue reading Artist a Day: Mary Lovelace O’Neal
On the heels of Jordan Casteel’s 2019 show, The Practice of Freedom, the artist is celebrating her first solo museum show in New York this month at the New Museum. Within Reach examines the evolution of Casteel’s career where the subjects of her portraits are reflections of the surroundings that shaped her oeuvre. Her latest … Continue reading Artist a Day: Jordan Casteel
“It was just an old passenger train from Dixie to the Midwest, with no amenities of any kind. No lights, no reading, nothing to do but make friends with the sounds of the night train. The wheels on the track made endless patterns, and I was caught up in it almost at once….From this I … Continue reading Artist a Day: Juan Logan
Beauford Delaney was born in Knoxville TN in 1901 and raised in a southern Baptist family with two budding artists. Beauford and his brother had a strong aptitude for art and their skills were cultivated locally until the artist moved to Boston to continue his studies. Delaney would later settle in New York and become … Continue reading Artist a Day: Beauford Delaney
It’s not your typical beach destination: the rocky cliffs are steep, the coastline is enveloped by thick fog embankments, the winds are ferocious, and the beaches aren’t swimmable, but that doesn’t deter many Bay Area residents from visiting this special seaside community. Tucked away in a coastal enclave 100 miles north of San Francisco, The … Continue reading Sustaining Simplicity: The Sea Ranch
In 2017 I dedicated a series of Artist a Day posts to Ruth Waddy, whose influence guided and amplified the careers of Los Angeles artists in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Her impact and legacy in documenting Black art is immeasurable and “as a champion for African-American artists, Waddy’s advocacy created a powerful … Continue reading Artist a Day: Evangeline J Montgomery
Over the last 2 months, every museum that I have visited has featured work by Kehinde Wiley, and this piece at Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art is probably one of my favorites purely because of its location. St. John the Baptist II is part of the Nasher’s permanent collection, and they chose to place the … Continue reading Artist a Day: Kehinde Wiley
I was recently in North Carolina and came across a painting by Charles White at the Nasher Museum of Art that had remained in a collector’s private possession since the work was originally sold in 1958. Seeing newly uncovered work is always a thrill, especially as Los Angeles is the latest host for White’s career … Continue reading Artist a Day: Charles White
Tom Lloyd’s light art holds a unique position in the history of the Studio Museum of Harlem. When the museum held its first exhibition in 1968, it chose Lloyd’s electronic sculptures in a show titled, Electronic Refractions. According to the museum the work defied expectations as a departure from figurative Black art showing even at its … Continue reading Artist a Day: Tom Lloyd
I’ve been thinking about the traveling exhibition Soul of a Nation and the artists, particularly the abstract painters from this era and how they approached their work during the tumultuous societal and economic shifts that took place between the 1960s and 1970s in New York. One common thread among many of the artists in the Black Arts … Continue reading Artist a Day: William T. Williams
Culture Shock Art 