Souls Grown Deep to Formalize and Expand Social & Economic Development Initiatives

At its Annual Meeting in Philadelphia yesterday, the Board of Trustees of Souls Grown Deep affirmed the incorporation of a new entity, the Souls Grown Deep Community Partnership, which includes the existing Souls Grown Deep Foundation, to continue its work dedicated to documenting, preserving, and promoting the contributions of African American artists from the South, and the new Community Partnership as a parallel organization to formalize and expand its initiatives to improve socio-economic conditions in the communities that were and are home to the 160 artists represented in the Foundation’s collection.

Lola C. West Elected to Souls Grown Deep Board of Directors

Lola C. West, Founder and Managing Director at Westfuller Advisors, joined the Board of Directors for Souls Grown Deep as of June 5, 2019. Before founding Westfuller Advisors, West served as a wealth advisor with Merrill Lynch for almost a decade. She also previously served as a senior partner of LWF Wealth Management. An active philanthropist, West is a charter member of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and a founding member of the Council for African American Art at the Brooklyn Museum. She also serves on the board of the Hetrick-Martin Institute and the New York Women’s Foundation. West received a B.A. in Psychology from Brooklyn College and a Master’s in Urban Planning from Hunter College and holds a Certified Financial Management designation; Series 7/66; and Life, Health, and Accident Insurance license. She lives on the Upper East Side of New York City. 

Philadelphia Museum Celebrates Souls Grown Deep Acquisitions with Two Exhibitions

Philadelphia Museum Celebrates Souls Grown Deep Acquisitions with Two Exhibitions

The Philadelphia Museum of Art presents Souls Grown Deep: Artists of the African American South, an exhibition including paintings, sculptures, and quilts that celebrates the recent acquisition of 24 works from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation. Among them are outstanding examples of large-scale sculptures and reliefs by Thornton Dial, assemblages by Lonnie Holley, Ronald Lockett, Hawkins Bolden, and Bessie Harvey, and an impressive selection of multi-colored quilts made by several generations of women from Gee’s Bend, Alabama, and the nearby towns of Rehoboth and Alberta. Many of these pieces were composed of found and salvaged materials and are deeply rooted in personal history of their makers.

Museum adds five treasures of Alabama's African-American history

Museum adds five treasures of Alabama's African-American history

A group of Alabama’s historic treasures has a new home in Montgomery. Five pieces by African-American artists from the state are joining the permanent collection of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and are currently on display in the gallery. They were acquired through a partnership with the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, a group dedicated to documenting, preserving and promoting African-American artists of the South. Angie Dodson, MMFA’s new director, called this one of the most significant acquisitions in the museum’s history—which is saying a lot since MMFA was founded in 1930. She said these pieces thrust the museum forward, “toward a broader American art history narrative, a deeper Alabama cultural history.”

Souls Grown Deep Announces Four New Museum Acquisitions

The Souls Grown Deep Foundation (SGDF) announced today that four museums have acquired works from its foremost collection of artworks by artists from the African American South: the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and The Phillips Collection. With the addition of these four museums, the foundation has now placed more than 350 works by over 100 artists in 16 institutions, primarily through a combination of gift/purchase. The collection transfer program is designed to strengthen the presentation of African American artists from the Southern United States in the permanent collections of leading museums across the world.

Gee’s Bend Quilters – Boykin, Alabama: Sacred Spirituals of Gee’s Bend

Gee’s Bend Quilters – Boykin, Alabama: Sacred Spirituals of Gee’s Bend

This release brings us music from the isolated African-American community of Gee’s Bend in the heartland of Alabama State: a collection of 19 traditional sacred spirituals sung by a close-knit group of four quilters (all bearing the surname Pettway, which implies a sibling connection). The tradition of quilting in that region goes back to the 19th century, and the singing that accompanies this activity is regarded as a healing for the soul; as one member of the quartet, China Pettway, also puts it: “while quilting, I sing because it’s a sound of whistling humming God gave me”.

Raina Lampkins-Fielder Named Curator of Souls Grown Deep Foundation

Maxwell L. Anderson, President of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, today announced the appointment of Raina Lampkins-Fielder as Curator, effective February 13, 2019. Based in Paris, Lampkins-Fielder most recently served as Artistic Director and Curator at the Mona Bismarck American Center for Art (MBAC). Dr. Anderson stated, in making the announcement: “The Souls Grown Deep Foundation remains committed to distributing the bulk of its collection to leading art museums over the next several years. With Raina’s appointment, we are broadening our mandate to include museums abroad alongside museums across North America, and to expand international awareness of the contributions of artists from the African American South.”

Toward a Fuller American Art History — The Modern Art Notes Podcast

Toward a Fuller American Art History — The Modern Art Notes Podcast

This week’s episode spotlights two strikingly different approaches to addressing gaps in our understanding of American art history by more fully including African-American artists in our national narrative. First, Souls Grown Deep Foundation president Maxwell Anderson discusses his organization’s project to document, preserve and promote the work of artists from the African-American South and to more fully include their cultural traditions within American art. Then, Kellie Jones, an art history professor at Columbia University, discusses the Getty Research Institute’s new African American art history initiative. 

Why American artists should benefit from the resale of their works - The Art Newspaper

Why American artists should benefit from the resale of their works - The Art Newspaper

In the US, authors, musicians, actors, and others in the creative industries have royalties and residuals that reward their enduring stake in the redistribution of their intellectual property, when properly enforced. Yet while visual artists are entitled to royalties on commercial reproduction, there is currently little to no legal recourse for them to benefit from the resale of their work.

BLACK LIVES MATTER: MET MUSEUM

BLACK LIVES MATTER: MET MUSEUM

An assemblage with political overtones and undertones of history—a show that reaffirms the truth that black lives matter. This exhibition presented thirty paintings, sculptures, drawings and quilts by self-taught contemporary African-American artists to celebrate the 2014 gift to The Metropolitan Museum of Art of works of art from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation. The artists represented by this generous donation all hail from the American South.