Art at the DIACollections
The General Motors Center for African American Art
This curatorial department and resource center develops special exhibitions, lectures and symposia on African American art. The Center was designed to enhance public knowledge of African American contributions to the art community, while exploring American history, society and creative expression from an African American perspective.
Highlights
View Selections of African-American Art
Ellen’s Isle, Loch Katrine
- Robert S. Duncanson, 1871
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Field Section
- Richard Hunt, 1972
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Night Ritual
- Allie McGhee, 1991
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Autobiography: Air / CS560
- Howardena Pindell, 1988
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The Death of Camilla
- Robert Thompson, 1964
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Established in 2000, the GM Center for African American Art represents one of the first curatorial departments dedicated solely to African American art at any major art museum. The Center actively pursues acquisitions and plans exhibitions of the museum's growing permanent collection of African American art. Currently over 400 objects, in various media, are included in the collection. Most of these works date from the latter half of the 1900's, and the collection is especially strong in the graphic arts.
Some of the important artists featured in the collection are Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, Robert Colescott, Roy DeCarava, Beauford Delaney, Robert Scott Duncanson, Sam Gilliam, Richard Hunt, Jacob Lawrence, Al Loving, Hughie Lee-Smith, Allie McGhee, Gordon Parks, Howardena Pindell, Martin Puryear, Alison Saar, Augusta Savage, Lorna Simpson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Robert Thompson, Carrie Mae Weems, William T. Williams and Hale A. Woodruff.
Join the Friends of African and African American Art today to meet other art lovers and learn more about the behind the scenes of the DIA's stunning General Motors Center for African American Art collection.
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