HALO MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY
HALO Halo presents an amazing cast of historical Black figures, most of whom were legendary and mythic characters in their time, but have been nearly lost to the vagaries and biases of history as seen through a white lens. With Halo, Mark Steven Greenfield brings these compelling lives back into view, honoring their memory by adorning them with halos as a sign of reverence and respect. “I am reimagining what a saint is,” Greenfield says. “Maybe in studying their stories, they can inform us on better ways to live.” Throughout his career, Greenfield’s work has dealt with elucidating the African American experience examining stereotypes and other acts of oppression, often by illuminating the most oppressive of acts - those of omission. Halo spans a rich diversity of time periods and geography to bring us stories of Black lives that begin to shed light on the complex impact that slavery and racial disenfranchisement have had on the historical record. The stories range from those of powerful leaders to ordinary people, many of whom became Black folk-heroes through their extraordinary acts of defiance and resistance. With Greenfield’s images, like those of Marie-Joseph Angelique, Solitude of Guadeloupe, Henry “Box” Brown, Celia, and The Tragedy of Margaret Garner, we learn of harrowing acts of courage and desperation in the yearning to be free from slavery. From others, like pirate Black Caesar, preacher Rebecca Cox Jackson, magicians Richard Potter and Black Herman, and perhaps the
first professional African American artist, Moses Williams, we learn of lives lived under slavery with ingenuity and creativity. And from Balthazar and Califia, we are reminded that one of the three magi was Black, and that the name for the state of California was inspired by a fictional Black warrior Queen, who ruled an all-female army of Black Amazons. This striking new series evolved as a natural progression from Greenfield’s previous exhibition, Black Madonna, which re-imagined the unique religious icons of a black Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus in ways that spoke to the moment. They made their sensational debut at the gallery in the fall of 2020. Halo continues in the Byzantine style of the Black Madonna icons, presenting us with fascinating historical figures, rendered in rich detail and set in circular tondos. The lustrous gold leaf backgrounds, like the halos, elevate the figures to a more hallowed stature. This exhibition feels destined for this moment, where racial inequities and unconscious biases continue to challenge our society and our institutions. The persistence of these issues has led to a renewed interest in better understanding the history that brought us here, in hopes of illuminating better ways forward. With Halo, Mark Steven Greenfield brings important, too often neglected figures and their stories into this critical discussion. -William Turner 2022
Moses Williams, 2022, Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel, 20” x 16”
La Habana oil on canvas 48” x 36”
Califia, 2022, Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel , 30” x 56”
Califia
Califia (c. 1510) Califia is the mythical Black warrior Queen and inspiring character in Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo’s 16th century epic poem, Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandian). In Montalvo’s tale, Queen Califia rules on the fabled island of California, a utopia brimming with pearls and gold and inhabited solely by her menacing army of Black Amazon women. Commanding a Naval fleet and an aerial flock of five-hundred winged Griffins, the pagan Queen is a fierce adversary for the Crusaders but is eventually conquered, converted to Christianity and married off to a chivalrous Spaniard. She returns to California with her husband to establish a new Christian dynasty as further adventures ensue. Familiar with Montalvo’s novel, when Spanish explorers, under the command of Hernán Cortés, learned of an island off the coast of western Mexico rumored to be ruled by Black Amazon women, they named it California. This stuck as the state’s namesake even after the “island” was discovered to be a peninsula, now known as Baja California Peninsula.
Califia 2022 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 30” x 56”
“Most of the people I’ve chosen to characterize in my work are from the period between the mid 1400s and the nineteenth century, which roughly corresponds to the years of the African slave trade. Prior to this, little distinction was made regarding a person’s skin color. It was generally accepted that some people were lighter or darker than others.”
Califia (right panel detail)
Estevanico
Estevanico (c.1500-unkown) Estevanico was the first African to explore North America. He was sold and enslaved to a Spanish nobleman, Andres Dorantes de Carranza, in a Portuguese-controlled part of Morocco. Enough accounts refer to Estevanico as “the black” to suggest that he was of African ancestry. He accompanied Dorantes de Carranza on a Spanish expedition from Florida along the Gulf of Mexico, into the southwestern United States and eventually Mexico City. The expedition was soon scattered by geographic miscalculations and storms, such that Estevanico, Dorantes de Carranza and two others became separated from the others, captured and enslaved by Coahuiltecan natives in 1529. In 1534, they were able to escape and continue into present-day Texas and Northern Mexico. They would be the first African and Europeans to enter the American west, and had walked over 2,000 miles since their initial landing in Florida, then another 1,000 south to Mexico City. Their survival journey took 8 years, and was often led by Estevanico because of his facility to communicate with the native tribes they encountered. Estevanico was also the first non-native to visit Pueblo lands. He was chosen by the Viceroy of New Spain (Mexico) to lead a return expedition into the southwest in search of the mythical gold riches of the “Seven Cities of Cíbola.” However, before the new expedition began members of the Zuni tribe reported that Estevanico had been killed in the Zuni city of Hawikuh, although they had not seen him killed. It has been suggested that rather than being killed by the Zuni tribe in 1539, as previously recorded, he faked his death in order to regain his freedom.
Estevancio 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
Rebecca Cox Jackson
Rebecca Cox Jackson (1795-1871) Rebecca Cox Jackson was a free Black woman, best known for her religious feminism and activism - as well as for her autobiography, Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Cox Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress. She had a spiritual awakening during a severe thunderstorm, during which she prayed for death or redemption. Suddenly she felt as though “the cloud burst.” Lightening that used to terrify her as the messenger of death, suddenly transformed and became the messenger of peace, joy and consolation. Through this revelation she received what she referred to as the “gift of power.” She divorced her husband for not teaching her to read and write - viewing literacy as a spiritual gift from God. She miraculously learned both and became a minister in the Shaker community ministering primarily to Black women. Rebecca Cox Jackson and her longtime partner, Rebecca Perot, thereafter founded a Shaker religious community in Philadelphia. Known as the “two Rebecca’s”, they lived together as ministry partners for more than 30 years. Jackson’s journal is considered the first black queer spiritual narrative in American history.
Rebecca Cox Jackson 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
Redoshi
Redoshi (c.1848-1937) Redoshi was born in the Kingdom of Dahomey, in western Africa, (now southern Benin). She was reported to be the daughter of a regional chief of the Dahomey people, but was captured by slavers around 1860 and transported with 110 other captured Africans to Alabama on the Clotilda, the last illegal slave ship to make the transatlantic voyage to the U.S. Upon arrival in Mobile, Redoshi was paired with an African man from another tribe and though she was only 12, they were sold as a couple. Redoshi is the only known female transatlantic slavery survivor to have been filmed and interviewed for a newspaper, living to age 89 or 110 (reports conflict). Redoshi survived her travails - the nightmarish journey on the slave ship; slavery; the imposition of Jim Crow laws and enough into the Great Depression so that she was able become acquainted with people active in the Civil Rights Movement. Her life was recounted by Zora Neal Hurston in an article written in 1928.
Redoshi 2022 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” X 16”
Zumbi dos Palmares
Zumbi dos Palmares (1655–1695) Thought to have been a descendent of central African royalty, Zumbi dos Palmares was an Afro-Brazilian leader who pioneered resistance to the enslavement of Africans by the colonial Portuguese. Zumbi was also the last of the kings of the Quilombo dos Palmares. Quilombos were settlements in Brazil populated by Maroons, the name for people of African descent who had escaped slavery. At its height, Quilombo dos Palmares comprised a confederation of 11 towns, spanned an area in Brazil’s rugged mountainous terrain roughly the size of Portugal and was populated by some 30,000 Maroons. In 1678, after years of conflict with the Palmares, Portuguese Governor, Pedro Almeida, approached king Ganga Zumba, (Zumbi’s uncle), with an olive branch. Almeida offered freedom for all runaway slaves if they would submit to Portuguese rule. While Zumba favored the offer, Zumbi, as commander in chief of the kingdom’s forces, refused. He distrusted the offer and refused to accept freedom while other Africans remained enslaved. Zumbi killed Ganga Zumba and took over as king, continuing Palmares’ resistance for the next 15 years, until the Portuguese launched an aggressive assault in 1694, destroying the kingdom’s central settlement. Zumbi, who had become almost god-like to his followers, was killed by the Portuguese in 1695, in part to dispel notions of his immortality. Today Zumbi remains a powerful symbol for resistance to slavery and liberation from Brazil’s Portuguese colonists.
Zumbi dos Palmares 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
“I’ve taken considerable license in venerating little known figures of the African diaspora by bestowing them with halos most often associated with religious iconography. Some of the subjects I’ve chosen were martyrs, mystics, freedom fighters, pioneers and even a few scoundrels, but all possessed an aura and stories that bear some relevance to our times”
Zumbi dos Palmares (center detail)
Moses Williams
Moses Williams (1775-1825) A former slave, Moses Williams was arguably the first African American to work as a professional artist. Williams became known for his cut-paper silhouette portraits of his white patrons. The technique of cut-paper profiles was a popular method of souvenir portraiture during the 19th century, which made them accessible tokens of conspicuous consumption for a new leisure class. Utilizing a new technology, the physiognotrace, Moses traced his sitter’s profiles which he would then painstakingly cut out. Ironically, as an infant Williams and his family were traded to Philadelphia artist Charles Willson Peale as partial payment for a plantation owner’s portrait. In 1780, Williams’ parents were freed by Pennsylvania’s Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, but the Act required Williams, who was only eleven, to remain under bondage until he turned twenty-eight. Williams thus grew up amongst Peale and his seventeen children. Peale instructed his progeny in “fine-art” painting while relegating Williams to what was considered the lower craft of paper cut-outs. Once of age, Williams was freed and went on to establish a relatively successful career as a silhouettist at Peale’s museum.
Moses Williams 2022 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
Black Caesar
Black Caesar (unknown-1718) Black Caesar was a pirate who operated in the Florida Keys during the golden age of piracy in the late 1600s and early 1700s. There were many pirates of African origin, mostly liberated from captured slave ships. Caught between a choice of perpetual slavery on land or freedom through lawlessness on the high seas, the choice was a compelling one for life as a pirate. Aboard these vessels, Black pirates could vote, bear arms, and receive an equal share of the booty. A pirate ship was one of the few places a Black man could attain power and wealth in the Western Hemisphere. As legend has it, Caesar was an African chieftain deceptively lured onto a slave ship which wrecked in a storm off the Florida coast. Being one of only two survivors, he amassed a considerable fortune by posing as a shipwrecked sailor and robbing vessels offering their assistance. He ultimately began attacking ships on the open sea. Black Caesar served as Blackbeard’s lieutenant aboard Queen Anne’s Revenge until Blackbeard’s death and his capture by Virginia colonial authorities and was hanged in Williamsburg in 1718.
Black Caesar 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
“Research, and research methodology, has always been an essential element in my creative process. Distinguishing fact from legend, as in the case of many of the people immortalized in HALO, was particularly challenging. Twice told tales always tend to lose important episodes in their retelling, and it is for this reason that my research into many of my subjects is ongoing.”
Black Caesar (center detail)
Xica da Silva
Xica da Silva (1732–1796) Francisca da Silva de Oliveira was born into slavery as a parda, a term used in the former Portuguese and Spanish colonies in the Americas to refer to the triracial descendants of Southern Europeans, Native Americans and West Africans. Her fortunes changed when her master was forced to sell her to Jose Fernandes de Oliviera, a wealthy Portuguese diamond merchant, who then granted her the status of ‘freedwoman’. With her new stature, Xica da Silva became a wealthy and influential member of Brazilian society, bore 13 children and lived out the rest of her life lavishly. Unlike other foreign colonizers, the Portuguese in the 18th century did not permit men to bring their families with them and as a result, there was far more mixing between disparate racial and socio-economic castes. Partially due to love affairs and children born between Portuguese men and African and/or mulatta enslaved women, freed former slaves were predominately female. Stereotypes about nonwhite women were abundant during the colonial period and while gender, race and color worked together to systemically disadvantage negro women, some individuals—such as Xica—used their perceived hyper-sensuality to invert gender and power relations. Once socially mobile, these women were seen as even more dominant than their masters. Sex facilitated access to freedom, and concubinage with white men offered advantages to black women because, once free, they reduced the stigma of color and of slavery for themselves and for their descendants.
Xica da Silva 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
Medicine Woman
Medicine Woman (fl. late 1400s - early 1500s)
Remembered simply
as the Medicine Woman, this heroic Afro-Dominican healer inspired the first hospital to be built in the Americas. She was referred to in a 16th century letter to the Spanish Crown as “a pious black woman who sheltered all the poor people she could and cured them as far as she was able.” The first Black people in the Americas were brought to Santo Domingo by Christopher Columbus in the 1490s, which is also where the African slave trade began - a full 116 years before the first slaves arrived in the U.S. colonies. Medicine Woman is reported to have lived in a humble shack, curing those who came to her, but soon persuaded the Spanish governor, Nicolas de Ovando, to build Hospital de San Nicolas de Bari in 1503, in Santo Domingo de Guzman, on the very site of her shack. Yet, in spite of her reputation as a healer and inspiring this historic first hospital, there is no record of her name, only those of the early Spanish politicians who funded it.
Medicine Woman 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
Balthazar
Balthazar (54 BC-55 AD) One of the three biblical ‘magi’ or ‘wise men,’ King Balthazar gave the highly prized gift of liquid myrrh to the Baby Jesus upon his birth. Balthazar was an African King and described in the 8th century by Pseudo-Bede as being “[of] black complexion, with [a] heavy beard,” and yet it would be one thousand years before artists began representing him as a Black African. It was only around 1480/90 that his depiction as a Black African emerged, coinciding with the beginning of the Portuguese slave trade on the west coast of Africa. In Greenfield’s depiction, an observatory alludes to his scholarship in astronomy and the star of Bethlehem, which guided the Three Wise Men to the manger.
Balthazar 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
“Religious icons were sometimes carried into battle to re-enforce the idea that God and the saints were on the side of your army. It is my hope that these contemporary icons and their stories will serve as a source of strength in our battles for social justice.”
Balthazar (center detail)
Black Herman Black Herman (1889-1934) Black Herman was the stage name of Benjamin Rucker, the most celebrated Black magician of his time. His performances drew on his African heritage, where he insinuated that his magic derived from the secrets of Zulu witch doctors, which often played to the superstitions of his audiences. His most famous trick was “Buried Alive,” where he would be placed in a coffin, after being declared dead by a local doctor, then “buried” for several days in an area he referred to as Black Herman’s Private Grave Yard.” As the coffin was lowered to the ground, he would slip out undetected, as crowds would pay to see the grave for days afterward, building suspense until the coffin was dug up and Herman would magically re-emerge, alive and well! Black Herman found his place as the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest magician” in Harlem, the African American mecca during the Jazz Age. He became quite successful with performances around the country and soon established himself as a civic leader in Harlem, employing over 30 people, making loans to local Black businesses and organizations, providing scholarships and supporting local churches. He purchased a printing plant, started a monthly mail order course in magic, acquired real estate, bought shares in two cotton plantations and owned a brownstone on West 119th St.. Influenced by the philosophy of Marcus Garvey and others fighting to improve the lives of African Americans, Black Herman infused political messages into his stage shows, and sold talismans to protect his followers from racism. Whether playing to all-Black audiences in the Jim Crow South or mixed audiences in the North, Black Herman promoted a message of Black pride in his shows.
Black Herman 2022 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
The Tragedy of Margaret Garner
The Tragedy of Margaret Garner (unknown-1858) Margaret Garner was an African American woman who fled slavery with her family by crossing the frozen Ohio River on a cold winter’s night. They fled the slave state of Kentucky for the free state of Ohio, taking sanctuary in a house overnight outside Cincinnati before connecting to the underground railroad for the journey north. By next morning however, the house was surrounded by U.S. Marshalls, acting under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, whereby escaped slaves could be apprehended even from free states. Realizing they were caught, Margaret Garner slit her young daughter’s throat and attempted to kill her three other children and herself rather than being returned to slavery. As she would tell the Reverend Henry Bushnell later, “I knew it was better for them to go home to God than back to slavery.” Her subsequent trial was a sensation. Her defense attorney argued that Margaret Garner should be tried for murder in Ohio, “as a person,” (hoping for a pardon from the abolitionist Ohio governor) and not as wayward “property” to be returned (under the Fugitive Slave Act), to her owner and back into slavery. Ultimately, the Federal Act prevailed and she was charged with destruction of property and returned to slavery. Her story served as the inspiration for Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
The Tragedy of Margaret Garner 2022 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
“I’m fascinated by the stories behind these figures and how often relevant they are to understanding the issues we still struggle with.”
The Tragedy of Margaret Garner (center detail)
Celia
Celia (unknown-1855) Celia was a fourteen year old girl when she was purchased in Missouri by enslaver Robert Newsom, sometime in 1851. Soon thereafter, Newsom’s wife died and he turned his attention to Celia. He saw her as nothing more than a sex object, and raped her repeatedly over the next four years. She bore him one, possibly two, daughters and was pregnant again in 1855. Celia was in a relationship with another enslaved man, named George, and it was unclear who the father might be. George urged her to resist Newsom’s advances and she appealed to his daughters to intercede on her behalf but to no avail. One night when Newsom came to her cabin, Celia bashed his skull in with a log. That night she burned his body in the fireplace and carefully crushed his bones. The next morning she convinced his grandson to scatter his ashes by offering him some walnuts. After a few days of questioning, Celia finally confessed. The trial lasted three months while her legal status, as a person or as property, was vigorously debated. Under Missouri law, a woman was allowed to kill anyone who tried to take them by force, so that if Celia could establish that she was a “woman” under the law, she could invoke its self-defense protections. But because Celia was enslaved, it was determined that she was property and not a person, and thus could not avail herself of any defense. Her child was stillborn and she was hanged.
Celia 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
Solitude of Guadeloupe
Solitude of Guadeloupe (1772-1802) “Live free or die,” were Solitude’s last words before being executed in 1802. Solitude was born enslaved in the French West Indies on the island of Guadeloupe. Her mother was an enslaved woman from Africa; her father, a sailor who raped her mother at sea on the voyage from Africa to Guadeloupe. Solitude was freed with the abolition of slavery in 1794, but when Napoleon Bonaparte reinstated slavery in 1799, she was classified as a Maroon, the term for escaped slaves, and joined a group of freedom fighters. They organized as a small army and fought against the French troops with the proclamation, “To the whole universe, the last cry of innocence and despair.” Though a few months pregnant, Solitude fought in the slave resistance and was said to be a fierce and fearless warrior, “who pushed herself and her belly into the heart of the battles,” before she was caught and imprisoned by the French. She was sentenced to death, but due to the fact she was pregnant, and her child would become the property of her enslaver, she was spared hanging until one day after giving birth. She was 30 years old.
“The Halo series is, for me, a way of reaching back through time to elevate these extraordinary figures. By sharing their stories, we revere their humanity, their strength and the struggles they endured.”
Solitude of Guadelupe (center detail)
Rewards Program
The Metropolitan oil & collage on canvas 48“ x 36“
Rewards Program (detail), 2021, Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel, 24” x 36”
Rewards Program, 2021, acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel, 24” x 36”
Rewards Program
Rewards Program celebrates and memorializes all of those whose names we will never know, whose unique lives have vanished under slavery’s inhumanity and indifference. It was common in the antebellum south for female slaves to do much of the same laborious fieldwork as their male counterparts. Slaves were driven to produce and would generally be free from punishment if they could pick 150 to 200 pounds of cotton a day. The four anonymous women toiling in the cotton fields are wreathed in reverential golden crowns of light honoring their memories, though their individual struggles and triumphs are forever lost to us.They also serve to remind us of the biases of western academic historiography, which often determined who is admitted and who is omitted from its pages.
Rewards Program 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 24” x 36”
Henry “Box” Brown
Henry “Box” Brown (c.1815-1897) Born into slavery on a plantation in Virginia, Henry “Box” Brown escaped to freedom in 1849, at the age of 33, by arranging to have himself mailed in a crate to sympathetic abolitionists in Philadelphia. The box was nailed shut and measured 3’ x 2.67’ x 2’ with a small hole cut for air. The box was transported by wagon, railroad, steamboat, wagon again, railroad, ferry, railroad and finally delivery wagon. The journey took 27 hours. Those receiving the “package” celebrated its arrival as much for being a modern postal miracle in express delivery, as for delivering Brown his freedom. About this uncertain method of travel, Brown later wrote, “if you have never been deprived of your liberty, as I was, you cannot realize the power of that hope of freedom, which was to me indeed, an anchor to the soul both sure and steadfast.” For a brief period thereafter, Brown became a noted speaker on abolition and got to know Frederick Douglas, but after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Brown moved to England for safety. Brown went on to become a lecturer, activist, magician, mesmerist and would have his autobiography published, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown. Additionally, he created a ‘moving panorama’ (a precursor to film), with which he traveled extensively throughout Britain to proselytize about the abolition of slavery.
Henry “Box” Brown 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
Queen Nzingha Mbande
Queen Nzingha Mbande (1583-1663) Nzingha Mbande was queen of the Ambundu kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba, located in present day northern Angola. Born in 1583 she received military and political training as a child. She ruled during the growth of the Portuguese slave trade and fought against the Portuguese for the independence of her kingdom in a reign that lasted 37 years. She was known to carry a hatchet into battle and knew how to use it. Inheriting rule of Ndongo in 1624, Queen Nzingha Mbande allied herself with the Portuguese which simultaneously halted Portuguese and African slave raiding in the region. In order to achieve this, Nzingha had herself baptized with the Portuguese colonial governor serving as godfather. Nonetheless, she was soon betrayed by the Portuguese, and was forced to flee and to reorganize her militia. She adopted a form of military organization known as kilombo, in which youths renounced family ties and were raised communally in militias. By the time of her death, she had developed her region into a formidable commercial state. Today, she is remembered as the Mother of Angola and protector of her people.
Queen Nzingha Mbande 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
“As I paint these fascinating characters, I often feel I’m in some sense resurrecting them, perhaps to say, “We see you now. We hear you now. You may not have been valued during your lives, but your stories matter - you matter.”
Queen Nzingha Mbande (center detail)
Yasuke
Yasuke (fl. 1500s) Yasuke was the first foreign-born man to reach samurai warrior status in 16th century Japan under the daimyo Oda Nobunaga, the first of the three unifiers of Japan. He arrived in Kyoto in 1579 in the service of an Italian Jesuit missionary and in under one year was in Nobunaga’s ranks. Having some command of the Japanese language allowed Yasuke to converse with Nobunaga and tell the tales of his travels which intrigued the feudal lord. There are no records as to Yasuke’s date or country of birth. Many historians propose he was from Mozambique, others suggest Ethiopia or Nigeria and it is contested as to whether or not he was ever a slave. Nobunaga was captured by a rival warlord in 1582 when he committed the ritual suicide, seppuko; prior to this, he had asked Yasuke to decapitate him and to deliver his head and sword to his son which was a great honor. Little is known about Yasuke after this, but it is believed he was exiled by the winning faction. However, he has been forever memorialized in the Japanese children’s book, Kuro-suke (kuro meaning “black” in Japanese) by Kurusu Yoshio.
Yasuke 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
Richard Potter
Richard Potter (1783-1835) Richard Potter was a magician, hypnotist and ventriloquist in early nineteenth century New England and is widely considered the first African American celebrity. He was born in Massachusetts to a Black mother who had been captured by enslavers along the Guinea coast and a white father. He married a Native American woman and had three children. His son Henry, also called Harry, died at age seven. His next son Richard Jr. had less success than his father as a magician. Richard Sr. was a Mason of the first African Lodge No. 459, purchased land and built a large estate near Andover, New Hampshire. When he died in 1835 his will dictated that he be buried standing upright. Potter’s story intrigued Harry Houdini, who included Potter in his popular Magazine of Magic. His life also inspired Grace Metalious’ character Samuel Peyton in the novel Peyton Place (1956) as the town’s founding father.
Richard Potter 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
“When I began the Halo series, I had no idea of the effect – the jumble of emotions - these figures and their stories would have on me. I’ve been by turns amused, outraged, saddened - but always fascinated and inspired.”
Richard Potter (center detail)
Marie-Joseph Angélique
Marie-Joseph Angélique (1705-1734) Marie-Joseph Angélique was a Portuguese-born slave who was tried, convicted and hanged for setting her enslaver’s home on fire, which subsequently burnt much of what was Old Montreal. In 1725, at the age of 20, Angélique had been brought to New England by her Flemish enslaver, where she was then sold to a Canadian fur trader and his wife and relocated to Montreal. Angélique bristled at her bondage, and after the fur trader’s unexpected death, threatened to “roast” his widow for refusing to free her. Learning that she was about to be sold again, she escaped with her lover, a white indentured servant to the household. Although he eluded capture, Angélique was caught and returned to the widow after two weeks on the run. Shortly thereafter the notorious fire occurred and Angélique was arrested, and although she protested her innocence, she was presumed guilty (as was the norm with slaves) and tortured into confession by crushing her legs. Although she was tortured to implicate her lover as well, she refused, in spite of the agony inflicted. Today, this history is being contested and it is theorized that she was used as a scapegoat for the crime, revealing much about the treatment of slaves in Canada at the time. A competing theory is that she was guilty of arson in an attempt to escape enslavement. In either case, Angélique has become a symbol of Black resistance and the indomitable desire for freedom.
Marie-Joseph Angélique 2021 Acrylic & gold leaf on wood panel 20” x 16”
MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD Mark Steven Greenfield is a native Angeleno, and the son of one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen. He spent many of his early years abroad living on air bases from Taiwan to Germany returning to Los Angeles at age 10. As a student at Los Angeles High School, he studied under the revered artist John Riddle, who quickly noted Greenfield’s talent, but recognized his vulnerability to the negative influences and dangers confronting most African American youth at the time. Riddle once remarked, “You could be a pretty good artist…. if you live that long”. This simple admonition got Mark’s attention and set him on a course that would define his life going forward. Greenfield’s early development as an Photograph By Tony Pinto artist was accelerated through a series of Saturday art classes at Otis Art Institute taught by Riddle, Charles White, and Bill Pajaud. He frequented Brockman Gallery and Gallery Tanner where he met the likes of Samella Lewis, Betye Saar, Noah Purifoy and John Outterbridge whom he considers mentors. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Art Education from California State University, Long Beach in 1973 and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University, Los Angeles in 1987. This year Greenfield’s work was featured in a 20 year retrospective at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, CA, from which one of his works was acquired by the Crocker Museum of Art for their permanent collection.
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY
Greenfield’s works have been exhibited extensively throughout the United States, most notably the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia and the California African American Museum which presented a comprehensive survey of his work in 2014. Internationally he has exhibited at the Chiang Mai Art Museum in Thailand, at Art 1307 Villa Donato, in Naples, Italy, the Blue Roof Museum in Chengdu, PRC, 1333 Arts, Tokyo, Japan, and the Gang Dong Arts Center in Seoul, South Korea. Greenfield is a recipient of the L.A. Artcore Crystal Award (2006) Los Angeles Artist Laboratory Fellowship Grant (2011), the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship (COLA 2012), The California Community Foundation Artist Fellowship (2012), the Instituto Sacatar Artist Residency Fellowship in Salvador, Brazil (2013) , the McColl Center for Art + Innovation Residency in Charlotte, North Carolina (2016) and Loghaven artist residency in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2021. He was a visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts in 2013 and California State University Los Angeles in 2016. From 1993-2011, Greenfield worked for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs as director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, and later as director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Artists Development Association, the Armory Center for the Arts, the Black Creative Professionals Association, the Watts Village Theatre Company and was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825. He currently teaches drawing and design at Los Angeles City College, and serves on the board of Side Street Projects, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition (LACE) and the Harpo Foundation.
MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD Born:
1951 Los Angeles, California
Education:
1987 M.F.A. (Painting and Drawing)
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY AT LOS ANGELES
1973 B.A. Art (Education)
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY AT LONG BEACH
Solo Exhibitions: 2022 “Halo”, William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “Mark Steven Greenfield–A Survey 2001-2021”, Museum of Art & History, Lancaster, CA 2020 “Black Madonna”, William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2018 “Love and Loathing”, California State University Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA “Spirits, Ghosts and Other Distractions”, California State University, Channel Islands, Camarillo, CA 2017 “Mantras and Musings”, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2015 “The Egun Squad”, Offramp Gallery, Pasadena, CA 2014 “Lookin’ Back in Front of Me”, Mark Steven Greenfield 1974-2014, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA 2011 “Doo Dahz”, Off Ramp Gallery, Pasadena, CA “Blackatcha … Once Again”, ISI Arti Associate, Naples, Italy 2009 “Othello’s Ghost”, Off Ramp Gallery, Pasadena, CA 2008 “Mammygraphs”, Wignall Museum, Chaffey College, Rancho Cucamonga, CA “Incognegro”, Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California, Riverside, CA 2007 “Incognegro”, 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica, CA 2004 “Post Minstral”, Steven Turner Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA 2000 “Blackatcha”, Reginald Ingraham Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Iconography”, Mount Saint Jancinto College, San Jancinto, CA 1998 “Spirit House”, Project Row Houses, Houston, Texas 1997 “Iconography”, The Banner Series, Los Angeles Southwest College, Los Angeles, CA 1987 “Crenshaw Consciousness”, California State University Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 1986 “Crenshaw Consciousness”, William Grant Still Art Center, Los Angeles, CA
Selected Group Exhibitions: 2021 “Otherwise / Revival”, Bridge Projects, Los Angeles, CA “Art & Hope at the End of the Tunnel”, Fisher Museum, USC, Los Angeles, CA 2020 Graphic Subversion, Cal State University, Northridge, Northridge, CA 2019 “Personal Truth”, El Camino College, Torrance, CA Celebrating a Cultural Heritage: Selections from the Mott-Warsh Collection, Lansing Community College, Lansing, MI 2018 “Four Million Angeles”, Annenberg Beach House Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “Visions of Elysium”, Inland Empire Museum of Art, Upland, CA “Conjurations, Varieties of the Abstract Experience”, Coagula Curatorial, Los Angeles, CA “Legacies”, California State University Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 2017 “In Pursuit of Beauty”, 3331 Arts Gallery and Imagine Gallery, Tokyo, Japan “Made in Cotton”, California State University Dominguez Hills, Carson, CA “Dimensions in Black”, Manetti-Shrem Museum, University of California Davis, Davis, CA “One Year, Art of Politics Los Angeles”, Brand Library Gallery, Burbank, CA 2016 “Made in Cotton”, LA Art Core, Los Angeles, CA “Recharging the Image: Selections from the Warsh-Mott Collection”, Visual Arts Center, Summit, New Jersey “Farewell Eden”, Stuart-Haaga Gallery, La Canada, CA “Abstraction” , Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2015
Los Angeles Art Now”, The Blue Roof Museum, Chengdu, China “Los Angeles Art Now”, I Box Gallery, Chengdu, China
2014 “Visual Exchanges”, Korean American Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA “The Armory Show”, (Ricco Maresca Gallery) New York, New York 2013 “Chicago Art Expo”, (Ricco Maresca Gallery) Chicago, Illinois “One Shot”, Loft at Liz’s, Los Angeles, CA 2012 “Go Tell It on the Mountain”, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA “Sea of Exchange, Ireland – Los Angeles”, LA Print Space, West Hollywood, CA 2011 “COLA Individual Artist Fellowship Exhibition”, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2010 “Places of Validation: Art and Progression”, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA “Inscription”, Cerritos College Art Gallery, Cerritos College, Norwalk CA “Social/Political Content”, Jose Drudis Biada Gallery, Mt. Saint Mary’s University, Brentwood, CA “Latitude 30-40”, Art 1307, Naples, Italy
Selected Group Exhibitions (Cont.) 2009 “4th Thai-USA Exchange Art Exhibition”, Chiangmai Art Museum, Chiangmai, Thailand “4th Thai-USE Exchange Art Exhibition”, Thailand Cultural Center, Bangkok, Thailand “Small Works”, Off Ramp Gallery, Pasadena, CA 2007 “Distinctly Los Angeles: An African American Perspective”, M. Hanks Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “West/Southwest”, 516 Arts, Albuquerque, CA 2006 “Blacks In and Out of the Box”, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA “Impressions”, El Camino College Art Gallery, Torrance, CA 2005 “Alterations”, Eisentrager-Howard Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 2004 “Marks, Scratches and Doodles”, Beckstrand Gallery, Palos Verdes Art Center, Palos Verdes, CA “Confessions”, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA “Surface Tension”, Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA “Whiteness: A Wayward Construction”, University of Virginia, Museum, Charlottesville, VA “Fade”, Luckman Fine Arts Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Broad Territories”, University of California Riverside, California Museum of Photography, Riverside, CA “Identification”, Highways Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “Only Skin Deep”, International Center for Photography, New York, NY 2003 “Whiteness: A Wayward Construction”, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna, CA “Redux”, Luckman Fine Arts Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2002 “Color, Culture and Complexity”, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta, GA “Sketches and Gestures”, Mullin Gallery, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA “In Pursuit of Peace”, 18th Street Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “History and Mystery”, Steve Turner Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA “Storefront Live”, Korean American Museum, Los Angeles, CA 2001 “Blackface/Whiteface”, LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM “Represent”, Kellogg Art Gallery, Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona CA “Banned & Barred”, BC Space Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA “Bridging Time”, LA Artcore Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Politically Incorrect”, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA “Skin/Veneer”, Angels Gate Cultural Center Gallery, San Pedro, CA “Capital Art”, Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2000 “Charm Offensive”, Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA “Looking Forward, Looking Black”, Tufts University Gallery, Medford, MA “Dae Jon/LA Contemporary Art Exhibition”, Woo Yeon Gallery, Dae Jon, South Korea 1996 “Affirming a Visual Heritage”, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Awards: 2021
Loghaven Artist Residency, Knoxville, TN
2016 McColl Center for Art + Innovation Residency, Charlotte, NC 2013 Instituto Sacatar Fellowship and Residency, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil 2012 California Community Foundation Fellowship 2011 COLA Individual Artist Fellowship Award, Los Angeles, CA 2010 Los Angeles Artist Fellowship Laboratory Grant, Los Angeles, CA 2006 Center for Cultural Innovation, ARC grant, Los Angeles, CA 2006 6th International Art Festival Workshop Award, Chiang Rai,Thailand 1998 LA Artcore Crystal Award, Los Angeles, CA 1998 Project Row Houses Residency, Houston, TX 1986-87 House of Seagrams Graduate Fellowship 1969 Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company Scholarship
Selected Museum & Public Collections: Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA Los Angeles County Museum of Art Permanent Collection California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA Mott-Warsh Collection, Flynt, MI San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA City of Los Angeles Art Collection, Los Angeles, CA Menelik-Woolcock Collection, Charlotte, NC Cerritos College Public Art Collection, Cerritos, CA University of California Santa Barbara Special Collections, Santa Barbara, CA Zimmer Children’s’ Museum Permanent Collection, Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles County Museum of Art Print Collection, Los Angeles, CA Tufts University Collection, Medford, MA
Photography: Rob Brander Portrait: Tony Pinto Layout: Rob Brander Essay: William Turner Copyright: William Turner Gallery & Mark Steven Greenfield 2022
WILLIAMTURNER TURNERGALLERY GALLERY WILLIAM