 |
|
|
|
|
Media Room
Dr. Walter O. Evans
Walter O. Evans, M.D. developed an interest in art while finishing medical school in Detroit. Recognizing a distinct absence of African American art in the world’s prominent museums, he made his first major purchase in 1978: a portfolio of prints by Jacob Lawrence entitled The John Brown Series. His collection has now expanded to more than 500 paintings, sculptures and photographs representing works from the 19th century to contemporary African American artists. Evans considers his collection an expression of his commitment to the importance of cultural heritage and family tradition.
In conjunction with his traveling exhibition, The Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art, Evans has conducted numerous lectures and symposia. He was also featured in Art & Antiques magazine five times as one of America’s top 100 collectors. In addition to his interest in African American art, he is an avid collector of African American first-edition books, manuscripts, letters, documents and photographs dating from the 18th century to the present.
Evans graduated from medical school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Until his retirement in 2001, Evans served as the chief of general surgery at Hutzel Hospital, Detroit, staff physician at Harper-Grace Hospital, Detroit, and a clinical instructor at Wayne State University, Detroit. In post-retirement, he has continued to work in medicine by traveling to remote and underserved regions of South America doing pro bono surgical work.
Presently, Evans is a Golden Life Member of the NAACP and serves as president of the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation. He is a past board member of the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.
Evans and his wife, Linda, who takes an equal interest in the collection, now reside in his birthplace, Savannah, Georgia.
^ top
Graham W. J. Beal, DIA Director
Graham Beal, a native of Great Britain, was born in Stratford-on-Avon and grew up near Hastings on the south coast of England. He has degrees in English and art history from the University of Manchester and the Courtauld Institute of Art.
After commencing his museum career at Sheffield City Art Galleries, he moved to the United States in 1973, working for one year at the University of South Dakota before moving on to Washington University in St. Louis as Art Gallery Director.
In 1977, Beal became Curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, an institution renowned for its interdisciplinary approach to contemporary art. He subsequently became Chief Curator and worked there until 1983, when he returned to England to be the Director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia until 1984. He returned to the U.S. to take the position of Chief Curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which he left in 1989 to become Director of the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. In July 1996, he became the Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1999 Beal joined the Detroit Institute of Arts, where he is the director, president, and CEO.
Beal has organized more than 40 exhibitions, many of which have toured nationally. His publications include books on the American paintings collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts, on contemporary British sculpture, and the artist Jim Dine, as well as articles in the monthly art journal Apollo. He has served on numerous art panels, was a member of the Federal Advisory Committee on International Exhibitions from 1991 to 1995, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Association of Art Museum Directors and Chair of its Art Issues Committee from 2002-2004. He was elected to the Board of Trustees of the American Association of Museums in 2004.
^ top
Valerie J. Mercer, Curator of the General Motors Center
for African American Art
Valerie J. Mercer is the first curator of African American art and head of the General Motors Center for African American Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). When hired in September 2001, she was charged with conducting research and developing special exhibitions, lectures and symposia on African American art. She also pursues acquisitions and plans exhibitions on the museum’s growing collection of African American art. In 2003, she organized the department’s inaugural exhibition Then and Now: A Selection of 19th - and 20th-century Art by African American Artists.
Prior to joining the DIA, Mercer was senior curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem. While there, she organized numerous exhibitions, including the nationally toured Explorations in the City of Lights: African American Artists in Paris, 1945–1965 and The Studio Museum in Harlem: 25 Years of African American Art. She also published several essays for catalogues and gave a number of lectures on topics such as “The Cult of Stereotypes at the Turn of the Century” and “African American Abstract Artists.” In addition to participating in lectures and panels, Mercer was an adjunct professor at the City College of New York and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Mercer received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from New York University and her Master of Fine Arts from Harvard University. She has written articles for the New York Times and in 1996 received the Woman of the Year award from the New York Association of Professional Black Women.
^ top
Image Caption: Charles White, We Have Been Believers, ca. 1940, charcoal on paper. Walter O. Evans Collection. 1949 © The Charles White Archives. (left)