Calendar

FAAAA LECTURE SERIES


September 13, 2009
2 p.m.
"Navigating the Auction Experience for African American Art"


Lecture by Nigel Freeman, Director of the African American Fine Art Department at Swann Auction Galleries, New York

Nigel Freeman is the director of the new African American Fine Art department at Swann Auction Galleries. He entered the auction world with a background in fine art as a painter and printmaker after earning a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University in 1991, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Art from Brown University in 1989. Nigel has been in the field of art auctions for the past 11 years, and previously was the associate director of Swann's Works on Paper department. He opened the Swann's new African American Fine Art department in the fall of 2006. Its first 4 auctions in 2007 and 2008 set numerous auction records for significant African American artists, including Elizabeth Catlett, Aaron Douglas, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Charles White and Hale Woodruff. Swann Auction Galleries is the only major auction house with a department dedicated to African American fine art. Nigel will share his knowledge of the growing market for this area of collecting. He'll also explain how to navigate various aspects of the auction experience.



October 18, 2009
2 p.m.
"Stories and Scandals in Bronzes from Old Benin"


Fifth Annual African Art Recognition Award
Lecture by Dr. Barbara W. Blackmun, Art Historian

King Ozolua of Benin Kingdom was the first African ruler to develop contacts with Europeans. Ozolua’s successor maintained this relationship with foreigners, but his followers did not. This lecture analyzes brass sculptures from Benin’s royal palace that show how Edo sculptors over centuries documented their culture’s changing attitudes toward Europeans.

Image: Benin, Nigeria, Portuguese Musketeer, mid 18th century; bronze. The Menil Collection, Houston. Photo: Hester + Hardaway, Houston



December 13, 2009
2 p.m.
FAAAA Annual Meeting & Lecture
"The Artist as Cultural and Social Revolutionary"


Lecture by artist Wadsworth Jarrell

After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1958, Wadsworth Jarrell joined with other black artists in seeking a self-determining artistic philosophy that would free African American art from narrow European concepts and theories. By the mid-60s, he became one of the founding members of the artist collective known as AFRI-COBRA, which was dedicated to creating an African American aesthetic that made their work understood, relevant and accessible to everyone. During subsequent decades, Jarrell’s art continued to reflect the tenets of AFRI-COBRA by his use of African American imagery, narrative subject matter, vibrant colors, improvisation and rhythmic design.

Image: Wadsworth Jarrell, Woman Supreme, 1974, © Wadsworth Jarrell



April 10, 2010
FAAAA Annual Gala

The annual gala for the Friends of African and African American Art will be held on Saturday, April 10, 2010. More details to come!