GALLERY: Art of the Successions Exhibition at the David C. Driskell Center
Successions: Prints by African American Artists from the Jean and Robert Steele Collection, an exhibition of works by some of the most highly regarded African American artists, organized by the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland, opens on Thursday, February 2, 2012 with a public reception from 5-7PM. The exhibition will stay open until June 22, 2012.
The exhibit is a small selection from the Steele collection. Dr. Robert E. Steele, the executive director of the center, and his wife have been collecting works on paper by African American artists for more than four decades. They decided that works by Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden would be the anchor for the collection; later they also added many works by such artists as David C. Driskell, Sam Gilliam, Margo Humphrey, and William T. Williams. They were aware of the absence of African American art within the narrative of the larger canon of American art. They started collecting not only for enjoyment; but to make a difference in society in what and how major art institutions collect and present American art.
