1939: Exhibiting Black Art at the BMA

From June 13, 2018 — October 28, 2018

7478181e-7cb8-40af-82e9-e6a32e41a614 1939: Exhibiting Black Art at the BMA black-art-1939 https://s3.amazonaws.com/artbma/images/exhibitions/large/1939blackArtView500.jpg https://s3.amazonaws.com/artbma/images/exhibitions/small/1939blackArtView500.jpg Children viewing Ronald Moody’s Midonz (1937) at The Baltimore Museum of Art’s Contemporary Negro Art exhibition. 1939. Above: Children viewing Ronald Moody’s Midonz (1937) at The Baltimore Museum of Art’s Contemporary Negro Art exhibition. 1939. Photograph Collection, Archives and Manuscripts Collections. AN6.40. Left: Archibald J. Motley Jr., Black Belt, 1934. Hampton University Museum, Hampton, Virginia. © Valerie Gerrard Browne / Chicago History Museum / Bridgeman Images 1 2018-06-13T00:00:00-04:00 2018-10-28T00:00:00-04:00 Free admission

In 1939, the BMA presented one of the first major exhibitions in the U.S. to feature African American artists. Contemporary Negro Art, served “as a declaration of principles as to what art should be in a democracy and as a gauge of how far in this particular province we have gone and may need to go…,” wrote renowned African American philosopher and art critic Alain Locke in the exhibition brochure. Nearly 80 years later, the BMA pays tribute to this landmark exhibition with 14 prints and drawings by African American artists who were included in the 1939 show. Highlights include the first work by a Black artist to enter the museum’s collection, Dox Thrash’s watercolor Griffin Hills, as well as works by Jacob Lawrence, James Lesesne Wells, and Hale Woodruff. The exhibition also draws attention to behind-the-scenes figures who worked on the project through archival materials shown publicly for the first time.

This exhibition is curated by Prints, Drawings and Photographs Curatorial Assistant Morgan Dowty.

1939: Exhibiting Black Art at the BMA and related programs are made possible by the PNC Foundation.

1939 Explore selected works and the lives of five African American artists featured in the historic Contemporary Negro Art exhibition.

In 1939, the BMA presented one of the first major exhibitions in the U.S. to feature African American artists. Contemporary Negro Art, served “as a declaration of principles as to what art should be in a democracy and as a gauge of how far in this particular province we have gone and may need to go…,” wrote renowned African American philosopher and art critic Alain Locke in the exhibition brochure. Nearly 80 years later, the BMA pays tribute to this landmark exhibition with 14 prints and drawings by African American artists who were included in the 1939 show.

Above: Children viewing Ronald Moody’s Midonz (1937) at The Baltimore Museum of Art’s Contemporary Negro Art exhibition. 1939. Photograph Collection, Archives and Manuscripts Collections. AN6.40. Left: Archibald J. Motley Jr., Black Belt, 1934. Hampton University Museum, Hampton, Virginia. © Valerie Gerrard Browne / Chicago History Museum / Bridgeman Images