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ABOUT THE PROJECT: As an arts organization dedicated to recognizing the contributions of women in the arts, NCWCA will be highlighting 27 Black Women in the Arts throughout 2020 in honor of Breonna Taylor. Breonna would have turned 27 years old this year had she not been murdered in her own home by the police on March 13th. #JusticeForBre
27 BLACK WOMEN IN THE ARTS:
#4 CARRIE MAE WEEMS (1953-PRESENT)
By Priscilla Otani
Carrie Mae Weems is an American artist who, through a wide range of media such as photography, text, fiber, audio, digital images, installation and video, creates works that focus on self- and cultural-identity, family, relationships, race, sexism, politics and social justice.
*** What can we learn from her life and work? ***
1) “…Carrie Mae Weems has yearned to insert marginalized peoples into the historical record. She does this not only to bring ignored or erased experiences to light but to provide a more multidimensional picture of humanity as a whole, a picture that ultimately will spur greater awareness and compassion.” Kathryn E. Delmez, Editor, “Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video.” Some of her ground-breaking bodies of work include “The Kitchen Table Series “(1990), “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried” (1995-1996) and “The Hampton Project” (2000).
2) Weems has exhibited extensively in the US and internationally, in more than 120 venues including the Museum of Modern Art, Getty Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), and the Whitney Museum. In 2014, Weems became the first African American woman to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. Weems was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame Museum in St. Louis, MO on October 30, 2020.
3) Weems is a recipient of many prestigious awards and honorary degrees. In 2013, she was awarded the MacArthur Genius Award and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award; in 2015, she was awarded both a Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow and the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal from Harvard. She has received honorary degrees from California College of the Arts, the School of Visual Arts, Syracuse University among others.
4) In 2002, Weems and Pierre Loving co-founded Social Studies 101 in Syracuse, New York. Through this organization, Weems has empowered Black and Latino youth to acquire marketable skills in technological, visual and graphic arts and to affect positive social change in their own community by getting involved in issues such as confronting gun violence and preventing the spread of COVID-19.
TAKE TIME: Learn more about Carrie Mae Weems at
1. Fresh Talk: Carrie Mae Weems, National Museum of Women in the Arts, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBxwugaFRhg&list=FLjBSq1m_Qump1ZcTxf0VH7Q&index=3
2. How Carrie Mae Weems Rewrote the Rules of Image-Making, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/t-magazine/carrie-mae-weems-interview.html
3. Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, Yale University Press, 2012, ISBN: 9780300176896
4. Social Studies 101: http://socialstudiesproject.org/
TAKE ACTION: Continue the legacy of Carrie Mae Weems by supporting Black Women in the Arts: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/where-to-donate-black-lives-matter-1879701
* Special attention to the following organizations: Black Girl Magik, Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, Black Women’s Blueprint, and (Fem)power
*** What can we learn from her life and work? ***
1) “…Carrie Mae Weems has yearned to insert marginalized peoples into the historical record. She does this not only to bring ignored or erased experiences to light but to provide a more multidimensional picture of humanity as a whole, a picture that ultimately will spur greater awareness and compassion.” Kathryn E. Delmez, Editor, “Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video.” Some of her ground-breaking bodies of work include “The Kitchen Table Series “(1990), “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried” (1995-1996) and “The Hampton Project” (2000).
2) Weems has exhibited extensively in the US and internationally, in more than 120 venues including the Museum of Modern Art, Getty Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), and the Whitney Museum. In 2014, Weems became the first African American woman to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. Weems was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame Museum in St. Louis, MO on October 30, 2020.
3) Weems is a recipient of many prestigious awards and honorary degrees. In 2013, she was awarded the MacArthur Genius Award and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award; in 2015, she was awarded both a Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow and the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal from Harvard. She has received honorary degrees from California College of the Arts, the School of Visual Arts, Syracuse University among others.
4) In 2002, Weems and Pierre Loving co-founded Social Studies 101 in Syracuse, New York. Through this organization, Weems has empowered Black and Latino youth to acquire marketable skills in technological, visual and graphic arts and to affect positive social change in their own community by getting involved in issues such as confronting gun violence and preventing the spread of COVID-19.
TAKE TIME: Learn more about Carrie Mae Weems at
1. Fresh Talk: Carrie Mae Weems, National Museum of Women in the Arts, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBxwugaFRhg&list=FLjBSq1m_Qump1ZcTxf0VH7Q&index=3
2. How Carrie Mae Weems Rewrote the Rules of Image-Making, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/t-magazine/carrie-mae-weems-interview.html
3. Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, Yale University Press, 2012, ISBN: 9780300176896
4. Social Studies 101: http://socialstudiesproject.org/
TAKE ACTION: Continue the legacy of Carrie Mae Weems by supporting Black Women in the Arts: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/where-to-donate-black-lives-matter-1879701
* Special attention to the following organizations: Black Girl Magik, Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, Black Women’s Blueprint, and (Fem)power
27 BLACK WOMEN IN THE ARTS: #3 DR SAMELLA LEWIS (1924- PRESENT)
By K. Sawyer Rose
Artist, art historian, museum curator, and author Samella Lewis has been a distinguished educator and strong advocate for African American art and art history.
*** What can we learn from her life and work? ***
1) Dr. Lewis founded L.A.’s Museum of African American Art and served as curator until 1986. She has also helped establish several gallery spaces that exhibit Black artists.
2) As a scholar, she is a trailblazer who has authored numerous important academic books on African American art. In 1969, she co-founded Contemporary Crafts Gallery, the first Black–owned art book publishing house.
3) Dr. Lewis is a renowned artist in her own right and is best known as a printmaker and painter. Often using the human form as her subject, her work addresses the struggles of the African American community.
4) She won the Charles White Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993 and the UNICEF Award for the Visual Arts in 1995. Scripps University established the Samella Lewis Scholarship for African American students. Dr. Lewis also won the Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989.
TAKE TIME: Read more about Dr. Lewis at
- https://hammer.ucla.edu/now-dig-this/artists/samella-lewis
TAKE ACTION: Continue the legacy of Dr. Samella Lewis by supporting Black Women in the Arts: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/where-to-donate-black-lives-matter-1879701
Special attention to the following organizations: Black Girl Magik, Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, Black Women’s Blueprint, and (Fem)power
*** What can we learn from her life and work? ***
1) Dr. Lewis founded L.A.’s Museum of African American Art and served as curator until 1986. She has also helped establish several gallery spaces that exhibit Black artists.
2) As a scholar, she is a trailblazer who has authored numerous important academic books on African American art. In 1969, she co-founded Contemporary Crafts Gallery, the first Black–owned art book publishing house.
3) Dr. Lewis is a renowned artist in her own right and is best known as a printmaker and painter. Often using the human form as her subject, her work addresses the struggles of the African American community.
4) She won the Charles White Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993 and the UNICEF Award for the Visual Arts in 1995. Scripps University established the Samella Lewis Scholarship for African American students. Dr. Lewis also won the Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989.
TAKE TIME: Read more about Dr. Lewis at
- https://hammer.ucla.edu/now-dig-this/artists/samella-lewis
TAKE ACTION: Continue the legacy of Dr. Samella Lewis by supporting Black Women in the Arts: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/where-to-donate-black-lives-matter-1879701
Special attention to the following organizations: Black Girl Magik, Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, Black Women’s Blueprint, and (Fem)power
27 BLACK WOMEN IN THE ARTS: #2 ADRIAN PIPER (1948 - PRESENT)
by Bianca Lago
Adrian Piper is an American conceptual and performance artist, philosopher, and thought provoker. Her work confronts themes of race, gender, class and identity.
Learn more about Adrian Piper by visiting her website: http://www.adrianpiper.com/biography.shtml
*** What can we learn from her life and work? ***
1) Philosophy influences her conceptual and performance art pieces. So much so that she attained her Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1981 and became a tenured philosophy professor at Wellesley College in 1990.
2) Piper’s introduction to performative art in the 1970s explicitly addressed her multiracial background and gender. Her well-known performance of The Mythic Being was filmed during this time where she challenged passers-by to categorize her by race, gender, and class while dressed as an African American man.
3) Before moving to Germany in 2005, Piper founded the Adrian Piper Research Archive (APRA) in Berlin to function as a personal archive as well as an ongoing art project.
4) Well-versed in Kantian ethics, Piper self-published philosophical works of hers like Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception and Volume II: A Kantian Conception. These works can be found on her website http://www.adrianpiper.com/index.html
5) Piper received the Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.
TAKE TIME: Read more about Piper at
TAKE ACTION: Continue the legacy of Adrian Piper by supporting Black Women in the Arts:
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/where-to-donate-black-lives-matter-1879701
* Special attention to the following organizations: Black Girl Magik, Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, Black Women’s Blueprint, and (Fem)power
Learn more about Adrian Piper by visiting her website: http://www.adrianpiper.com/biography.shtml
*** What can we learn from her life and work? ***
1) Philosophy influences her conceptual and performance art pieces. So much so that she attained her Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1981 and became a tenured philosophy professor at Wellesley College in 1990.
2) Piper’s introduction to performative art in the 1970s explicitly addressed her multiracial background and gender. Her well-known performance of The Mythic Being was filmed during this time where she challenged passers-by to categorize her by race, gender, and class while dressed as an African American man.
3) Before moving to Germany in 2005, Piper founded the Adrian Piper Research Archive (APRA) in Berlin to function as a personal archive as well as an ongoing art project.
4) Well-versed in Kantian ethics, Piper self-published philosophical works of hers like Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception and Volume II: A Kantian Conception. These works can be found on her website http://www.adrianpiper.com/index.html
5) Piper received the Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.
TAKE TIME: Read more about Piper at
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Adrian-Piper
- https://hyperallergic.com/439255/adrian-piper-museum-of-modern-art-retrospective/
- https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/about/feminist_art_base/adrian-piper
TAKE ACTION: Continue the legacy of Adrian Piper by supporting Black Women in the Arts:
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/where-to-donate-black-lives-matter-1879701
* Special attention to the following organizations: Black Girl Magik, Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, Black Women’s Blueprint, and (Fem)power
27 BLACK WOMEN IN THE ARTS: #1 AUGUSTA SAVAGE (1892-1962)
by Angela Han
Augusta Savage was a sculptor, educator, and activist known for being one of the first artists to consistently create work reflecting Black faces and bodies during the Harlem Renaissance in New York.
*** What can we learn from her life and work? ***
1) She kindled a relentless, “burning desire” to become a successful sculptor despite her family’s lack of support and difficulty procuring materials in her early years.
2) She sculpted busts of influential Black figures (e.g. W.E.B. Du Bois) and her best-known work, "Gamin," won the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship that enabled her to study in Paris, 1929. Her largest work, "The Harp," was influenced by Black spirituals and hymns.
3) She grew to be a prominent teacher in Harlem after starting the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts, expressing:
“If I can inspire one of these youngsters to develop the talent I know they possess, then my monument will be in their work. No one could ask for more than that.”
4) She trail-blazed, becoming the first 1st director of the Harlem Community Art Center and the first Black member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.
TAKE TIME: Read more about Savage at https://americanart.si.edu/artist/augusta-savage-4269
TAKE ACTION: Continue the legacy of Augusta Savage by supporting Black Women in the Arts:
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/where-to-donate-black-lives-matter-1879701
* Special attention to the following organizations: Black Girl Magik, Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, Black Women’s Blueprint, and (Fem)power
*** What can we learn from her life and work? ***
1) She kindled a relentless, “burning desire” to become a successful sculptor despite her family’s lack of support and difficulty procuring materials in her early years.
2) She sculpted busts of influential Black figures (e.g. W.E.B. Du Bois) and her best-known work, "Gamin," won the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship that enabled her to study in Paris, 1929. Her largest work, "The Harp," was influenced by Black spirituals and hymns.
3) She grew to be a prominent teacher in Harlem after starting the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts, expressing:
“If I can inspire one of these youngsters to develop the talent I know they possess, then my monument will be in their work. No one could ask for more than that.”
4) She trail-blazed, becoming the first 1st director of the Harlem Community Art Center and the first Black member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.
TAKE TIME: Read more about Savage at https://americanart.si.edu/artist/augusta-savage-4269
TAKE ACTION: Continue the legacy of Augusta Savage by supporting Black Women in the Arts:
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/where-to-donate-black-lives-matter-1879701
* Special attention to the following organizations: Black Girl Magik, Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, Black Women’s Blueprint, and (Fem)power
