GALLERY GUIDE
REFLECTIONS
AFRICAN AMERICAN LIFE FROM THE MYRNA COLLEY-LEE COLLECTION
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ANIMATE
Animate a Romare Bearden-inspired collage. You can create the illusion of even more movement at our stop-motion animation station. It’s easier than you might think!
Romare Bearden used cut magazine fragments, colored paper bits, foil and more to create movement in his works of art. See if you can find all of his artwork on display!
ADMISSION DESK Experience Reflections by visiting the four interactive stations throughout the galleries. Be sure to document your fun and share on social media using the #lsumoa hashtag!
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RELAX
Read up on African American art and artists or grab one the children’s books to read to your child. Look for the Romare Bearden book My Hands Sing the Blues, the James Van Der Zee book Take a Picture of Me, James Van Der Zee, or our curator’s pick: Elizabeth Catlett: In the Image of the People.
Continue learning at home by purchasing a few of these books in the LSU Museum Store on the first floor. 2
Choose a portion of Ernest Crichlow’s Underground II to recreate with colored pencil. Add your section to create a collaborative interpretation.
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COLLABORATE
Visit the museum again later to see the progress of this piece of artwork.
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RESTROOMS 2 3 4
Strike a pose ... or three at our James Van Der Zee-inspired photo booth. Print your pictures to take home or leave them in the gallery to share with others.
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RECREATE
Get creative with the costumes and props available to recreate the subjects often seen in Van Der Zee’s portraits. 3
ORGANIZING & ACTIVISM
African American artists in the early to mid-19th century were often concerned with the question of how African Americans should be represented in artwork.
The New Negro Movement during the Harlem Renaissance suggested positive, figurative images should be the focus of African American art. Many James Van Der Zee photographs present educated, middle class African Americans to align with this idea. LEFT TO RIGHT: James Van Der Zee, Untitled, 1931, silver gelatin print. James Van Der Zee, Untitled,1927, silver gelatin print. James Van Der Zee, Barefoot Prophet, 1929, silver gelatin print. All images from the Myrna Colley-Lee Collection.
Elizabeth Catlett was prominent activist, organizer, intellectual, and artist. She moved to Mexico to work alongside socialist artists like Diego Rivera and focused on representing “the people.” A leading voice in the Black Arts Movement, she delivered her influential “The Negro People and American Art at Mid-Century” in 1961 to the Third National Conference of Negro Artists; Catlett delivered this speech again over the phone (due to political exile from the U.S.) to the National Conference on the Functional Aspects of Black Arts in 1970.1 Elizabeth Catlett, In Sojouner Truth I fought for the rights of women as well as Negroes (from the Negro Woman series), 1946–1947, 1989 edition, linocut, From the Myrna Colley-Lee Collection. 4
“Is there a Negro image?”
New York-based artists Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, and Hale Woodruff (Bearden and Woodruff were both born in the South, but based in NY.) formed the artist collective Spiral. Lewis asked, “Is there a Negro image?” Bearden thought the group might work together to answer this question collaboratively through collage. In the end, no one agreed on one aesthetic, but Bearden grew his collage practice. Lewis became a respected abstract artist, while many Black artists continued to focus on the figurative. IMAGES: TOP LEFT: Hale Woodruff, Sunday Promenade, 1935, 1996 restrike, linocut. TOP RIGHT: Romare Bearden, Ritual Bayou: Ritual Bayou, 1970–1971, photolithograph and collage. BOTTOM: Norman Lewis, Nudes (Two Women), 1969, oil pastel on paper. All images from the Myrna Colley-Lee Collection. Lisa Farrington, “The Art of African American Women in the Collection of the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas” in Here. African American Art from the Collection of the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas. 2016: Arts & Science Center. 1
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MEMORY & PLACE
ROMARE BEARDEN & RADCLIFFE BAILEY
“I’m trying to explore, in terms of the particulars of life I know best, those things common to all cultures.” —Romare Bearden2 Romare Bearden uses fragmented imagery to reconstruct the South of his memories in collages. He often includes images of trains, moons, haunting eyes, birds, shacks, muscians, cats (his favorite), and windows.
“Whenever you’re sick, you go to the medicine cabinet. For me, I go to memory. The idea of memory heals me and takes me to another place.” — Radcliffe Bailey Radcliffe Bailey’s Voyage of No Return directly refers to the Atlantic slave trade and is part of his “Memory as Medicine” series. Bailey uses old family photos, DNA, Georgia red clay (Bailey moved from the North to Georgia) and water from various locations in the creation of his work. 6
COLLECTION CONNECTION
JOHN T. SCOTT
John T. Scott, Buddy Bolden, 1997, collage, From the Myrna Colley-Lee Collection.
John T. Scott was a sculptor, painter, printmaker, and collagist from New Orleans. He referred to the “musicality of New Orleans” as a major influence on the colors and rhythms of his work. Scott mentored a generation of Louisiana African American artists, including Martin Payton— whose work will be on display at the museum in October!
Can you find the John T. Scott piece on display in our permanent collection galleries? HINT: STOP! to look in the Bayou Moderne gallery.
IMAGES: PAGE 6 TOP: Romare Bearden, Season of the New Bride, 1982, mixed media collage on masonite. PAGE 6 BOTTOM: Radcliffe Bailey, Voyage of No Return, 2008, mixed media shadowbox. PAGE 7 BOTTOM: John Tarrell Scott (New Orleans, LA, 1940-2007), Blues Poem for the Urban Landscape: Stop Sign (detail), 2003, woodcut on paper, ed. 4/10, Purchased with funds from the Friends of LSU Museum of Art Endowment and Mary Frey Eaton, Laura Lindsay, Susan & Richard Lipsey, Chuck & Jerry Schwing, Sue Turner, Cornelius Lewis & Karen Williams, Linda & Bob Bowsher, Victoria Cooke, Tom Livesay & Amanda Haralson, Fran Huber, LSUMOA 2008.1 2 Romare Bearden quoted in “The Prevalence of Ritual” by Carroll Greene in The Prevalence of Ritual, New York: MoMA, 1971. http://mo.ma/2vs7wbR
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UPCOMING PROGRAMS BROWN BAG LUNCH August 2, 2017, 12–1 p.m. LSU Museum of Art, Third floor Bring your lunch to the third floor conference room as Fran Huber, Assistant Director for Collections Management, leads an informal discussion on how to preserve your personal collections and family treasures. Free.
THIRD THURSDAY August 17, 2017, 6–8 p.m. LSU Museum of Art, Fifth floor Baton Rouge-based arts collective Forward Arts will present a series of spoken word performances inspired by artwork on display in the exhibition. A cash bar and light hors d’oeuvres will be available. $10 for general public, $5 for museum members.
CONVERSATION WITH MYRNA COLLEY-LEE September 7, 2017, 6–8:30 p.m. LSU Museum of Art, Fifth floor Join us for a conversation with collector and costume designer Myrna Colley-Lee at 6:30 p.m., in conjunction with a reception including light hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. $10 for general public, $5 for students and faculty with ID, free for museum members.
PRINTMAKING WORKSHOP: LINOCUTS September 14, 2017, 6–8:30 p.m. (Part 1) September 17, 2017, 1–3:30 p.m. (Part 2) LSU Museum of Art, Third floor Experiment with linocut printmaking inspired by the work of Elizabeth Catlett and Hale Woodruff. Design an image and transfer it to linoleum for cutting and printing. The workshop will consist of two 2.5 hour sessions. All skill levels welcome, advance registration required at lsumoa.eventbrite.com. Limited to 18 participants. $45 for nonmembers, $35 for members. Annual Exhibition Fund support is generously provided by The Imo N. Brown Memorial Fund in memory of Heidel Brown and Mary Ann Brown, Louisiana CAT, and L. Cary Saurage II Foundation. Reflections is organized by International Arts & Artists, Washington, DC, in collaboration with the office of Myrna Colley-Lee.
ON THE COVER Charles White, Untitled (detail), c. 1969, Oil on canvas, From the collection of Myrna Colley-Lee.
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