Celebrating Black Artists   

This class will take you on a chronological journey from the decades before the Civil War to today through the work of six Black artists. We’ll look at a work by each artist, but we’ll also talk about what their life and work have to say about who could become an artist in our country at that time and how American art created by Black Americans has evolved over nearly two centuries. The class will explore how racism and the legacy of slavery created barriers for Black artists to make art and be accepted in the art world and how Black artists got around those barriers to make their mark in the art world, both in the US and internationally. The works we will discuss are in the permanent collection at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, so if you like the lecture, you can make an easy drive to see these and other works by American artists just down the road.