Delaware Art Museum

Ancestry and Innovation: African American Art from the American Folk Art Museum

May 9, 2009 – July 12, 2009

This exhibition features textiles, paintings, works on paper, and sculpture by contemporary African American artists. From vibrant quilts and weathervanes to provocative assemblages and paintings, this wide-ranging exhibition explores the artistic expressions of self-taught artists from the rural South and the urban North.

Ancestry and Innovation includes works of art by an elder generation of creators, such as David Butler, Sam Doyle, Bessie Harvey, and Clementine Hunter; by contemporary masters such as Thornton Dial, Sr. and Thornton Dial, Jr.; and by emerging artists such as Kevin Sampson and Willie LeRoy Elliot. The ongoing contribution of African American artists to the kaleidoscope of American cultural and visual experience is the core of the exhibition.

Black Matriarch, c. 1970s. Clementine Hunter (1886/1887–1988). Melrose Plantation, Natchitoches, Louisiana. Oil on cardboard, 24 x 16 ½ inches. Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York, gift of Mrs. Chauncey Newlin. Photo by Gavin Ashworth.

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King of Africa, 1989. Thornton Dial Jr. (b. 1953). Bessemer, Alabama. Carpet and enamel on incised wood, 48 x 72 inches. Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York, museum purchase made possible with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Metropolitan Life Foundation, 1990.3.2. Photo by Brad Wrisley.

Organizer & Sponsors

Ancestry and Innovation: African American Art from the American Folk Art Museum was organized by the American Folk Art Museum, New York, and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. The exhibition was made possible by MetLife Foundation.

In Delaware, this exhibition is made possible, in part, by grants from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.

Additional support is provided by The Gilliam Foundation.

Playing Cards, c. 1970. Clementine Hunter (1886/1887–1988). Melrose Plantation, Natchitoches, Louisiana. Oil on canvas board, 18 x 24 inches. Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York, gift of the Mildred Hart Bailey/Clementine Hunter Art Trust. Photo by Gavin Ashworth.

The Last Frontier, c. 1988–1989. Willie LeRoy Elliot (b. 1943). Detroit, Michigan. Mixed media on wood, 53 x 60 x 29 inches. Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York, Blanchard-Hill Collection, gift of M. Anne Hill and Edward V. Blanchard Jr. Photo by Gavin Ashworth.

Pig Pen Quilt, 1982. Pecolia Warner (1901–1983). Yazoo City, Mississippi. Cotton and synthetics, 79 1/2 x 76 ½ inches. Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York, gift of Maude and James Wahlman. Photo by Scott Bowron.