“African Modernism in America”, 1947–1967 is the first major traveling exhibition to examine the complex connections between modern African artists and American patrons, artists, and cultural organizations amid the interlocking histories of civil rights, decolonization, and the Cold War.

During these years, institutions such as the Harmon Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) collected and exhibited works by many of the most important African artists of the mid-twentieth century, including Ben Enwonwu (Nigeria), Gerard Sekoto (South Africa), Ibrahim El-Salahi (Sudan), and Skunder Boghossian (Ethiopia).

This exhibition is drawn primarily from Fisk University’s collection of gifts from the Harmon Foundation. It features more than seventy artworks by fifty artists that exemplify the relationships between the new art that emerged in Africa during the 1950s and 1960s and American art and cultural politics.

The show reveals a transcontinental network of artists, curators, and scholars that challenged assumptions about African art in the United States, and encouraged American engagement with African artists as contemporaries.

On display until February 12, 2023, at the Fisk University Galleries.

Source: Fisk University Galleries.