The exhibition brought together Elizabeth Catlett, Margaret T. Burroughs, Charles Criner, Marie Johnson-Calloway, Lionel Lofton, Rose Piper and Winfred Rembert.
Across sixty years, the artists approached Black experience through distinct styles, materials and forms of storytelling. Their differences are the exhibition’s central argument: no single image or voice can contain a shared history.
This exhibition brings together seven African American artists with their individual Black experiences offering a variety of styles, content and storytelling by Elizabeth Catlett b.1915, Margaret T. Burroughs b.1917, Charles Criner b.1945, Marie Johnson-Calloway b.1920, Lionel Lofton b.1954, Rose Piper (1917-2005) and Winfred Rembert b.1945
Charles Criner and Lionel Lofton are Texas artists who trained under John Biggers at Texas Southern University. Criner was introduced to lithography by Biggers and has continued to master the technique. He pulls his own prints using a150 year old antique press. Criner's works have strong narrative content. His stories are woven out of his immediate, personal experiences and his recollections of those experiences in his memory-some distant some recent. His range of images are numerous from boyhood recollections, recent fishing trips (fishing is his favorite pastime and we have 3 large watercolors), to rural and heroic scenes that in many instances are imbued with a sense of religiosity and Black people working in the fields. These stories and images are ever changing and evolving. The images depicting the Black experience in the fields are the most poignant and powerful. In the artist's words these images are "important and that they should be cherished windows into our past".
Elizabeth Catlett is one of America's great artists. She brings to her work a sense of compassion, with a unique artistic and expressive vocabulary giving her subject's supreme dignity and a feel for the human condition. This dignity is especially noted in her depiction of the people with whom she most identifies, the African American and Mexican woman. In both Catlett's prints and sculpture, one finds the representation of human dignity born of honest work in the face of arbitrary social constraints". (James Cuno, Director, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2006). Catlett has had a very distinguished career in sculpture and printmaking. She has received numerous awards and honorary degrees. Her work is included numerous museums and private collections across the country.
Lofton states "art is a part of living - a universal language. It is life itself - both visual and emotional. The power to create and express myself gives me great pride, strength and joy. My cultural background serves as an inspiration of my work. I aspire to reach greater heights in my works as I take my works of realism to another level".
"Lionel Lofton is best known for his colorful abstract paintings though he also frequently works in printmaking and mixed media, combining acrylics, watercolor and color pencil. His imagery often refers to concepts of inner strength, beauty, and spirituality. He was greatly influenced by John Biggers under whom he studied early in his development as an artist". (Amalia K. Amaki, 2004)
Margaret T. Burroughs is known for her roles as an educator, artist, museum founder and director (the DuSable Museum of African American History), writer, political activist, and role model for African Americans and women of all colors. She is also one of the founders of the South Side Community Art Center, the first such venue for African American artists in the country. She is an avid storyteller and she incorporates this talent into her portrayals. Most of her work deals with social commentary, oppression, and race related themes. Her energy is best felt in the vitality of her many prints, including, lithographs, woodcuts and linocuts. (St. James Guide to Black Artists, 1997)
Marie Johnson-Calloway, "As a Black woman artist, I wished to look beneath the misconceptions with which history had covered my people and me", Johnson-Calloway "attempts to depict the rough-hewn beauty of some of the people in my life in realistic, representational terms, using media such as weathered wood, worn clothing and found objects. In other works she uses spiritual and ancestral symbols sometimes infused within the imagery. The one connecting thread through all of the work is my perception of my own world, external and internal and my continuous effort to relate the personal with the universal". Johnson-Calloway has had a long and distinguished career from her B.A. at Morgan State College, where she recently had a major retrospective of her work, to professorships at San Francisco State University, San Jose State University and California College of Arts & Crafts. She has been a lecturer and consultant as well as teaching in city schools. Her exhibits and awards are many and varied.
Rose Piper attended Hunter College in New York and continued her art studies at The Art Students League where she studied with Vaclav Vytacil & Yasuo Kuniyoshi. Piper received a Rosenwald Fellowship in 1946 and 1947 and in 1947-1948 spent a year of independent study in Paris. Ms. Piper gained national acclaim with her first solo show in New York. In 1948 she was part of the 7th Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Negro Art sponsored by Atlantic University. The show included works by Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Richard Barthe and Jacob Lawrence. Piper's painting "Greivin' Hearted" took first place. Because of family problems Piper had to leave her fine art behind to keep the family together. She was very resourceful and eventually became a major designer in the fashion industry winning numerous awards for her fabrics.
Piper retired in 1980 but she began drawing and painting again in 1978. She has since had several very successful exhibitions and had been in many invitationals. Piper is represented here with a beautiful ink drawing,