A Guide to Black Art in DC: Emerging Artists, Galleries, and More
When Sam Gilliam died last year, it was a huge loss for the art world. That was followed, in March, by the death of Lou Stovall, and a few years back we also lost David C. Driskell, a worldrenowned artist and scholar. In addition to their enormous impact, these three men shared another notable trait: They were all not just artists, but Black artists, and they all lived and worked in our area.
Black art has long been a major force in Washington. Long before downtown galleries and national museums welcomed artists of color, African American painters, sculptors, and crafters were making distinctive and significant work around the city. What follows is a look back at the last century of Black art in DC, or at least a small fraction. To truly display its breadth and influence, you would need to build a whole museum—which sounds like a good idea to us!
Eight Great Artworks by Black DC Artists
How do you capture the huge variety of notable work by DC’s Black artists? We asked a couple of experts for some picks: Adrienne L. Childs, an art historian and adjunct curator at the Phillips Collection, and Jeffrey C. Stewart, a Pulitzer Prize–winning author and Black-studies professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
1. “She captures the essence of Washington’s explosion of springtime flowers in her signature abstract aesthetic.”
2. “Stout’s magical installations reveal how spirit and memory is contained in everyday objects.”
3. “I love the way ‘Wives of Sango’ speaks to the spirit of the Black Arts Movement in real time.”
4. “It beautifully speaks to the unspeakable horror of the Emmett Till story through a reference to Christian themes.”
