Past Exhibitions | Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art

Allentown Art Museum

June 2 – September 1, 2019

Scheller and Fowler Galleries

31 N 5th St. Allentown, PA 18101

(610) 432-4333

**Sam Gilliam (b. 1933),** *Transfer #2* **(detail), 2009, acrylic with collage. © Sam Gilliam. Image license courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery. Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African-American Art**

This exhibition presents sixty-five pieces from the esteemed **Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African-American Art**, including more than forty works new to the collection and on view for the first time. Spanning the late nineteenth century to the current decade, the show features work by such celebrated artists as Henry Ossawa Tanner, Charles White, and Elizabeth Catlett. Simultaneously, it heralds groundbreaking contemporary artists like Vanessa German, William Villalongo, and Syd Carpenter. With paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, and photographs, this selection gives a sense of the broad range of powerful and sensitive artwork made by artists of the African diaspora over more than a century. From realism to abstraction, with humor, grace, and pathos, the works in this exhibition sample this important private collection built in the last six years under the direction of curator Berrisford Boothe.
Founded in 2006, the Petrucci Family Foundation (PFF) actively responds to the needs of the communities it serves, with the mission of supporting education and creating opportunity for Americans at every stage of and station of life. The PFF Collection of African-American Art is a targeted initiative to bring focus to the full range of African-American visual creativity and its essential place in the history and discourse of American art. This important collection, the result of a partnership between Lehigh University professor Berrisford Boothe and regional real-estate developer Jim Petrucci, has received national attention following its exhibition at the Portland Museum of Art in 2017.

https://www.allentownartmuseum.org/exhibitions/an-essential-presence-the-petrucci-family-foundation-collection-of-african-american-art/

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Constructing Identity

Jan 28 – Jun 18, 2017

Portland Art Museum

1219 SW Park Ave, Portland, OR 97205

(503) 226-2811

In 21st-century America, questions of race and identity are being explored as never before. This exploration has prompted many artists of color to investigate what constitutes identity, community, and the idea of a so-called post-racial society. Constructing Identity: Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African-American Art brings together paintings, sculpture, prints, and drawings by prominent contemporary African-American artists along with a selection of historical works from the 1930s, 1940s, and Civil Rights era.Drawing from the Petrucci Family Foundation collection, Constructing Identity features works by more than 80 artists, including Henry Ossawa Tanner, Elizabeth Catlett, Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, Faith Ringgold, Radcliffe Bailey, Kara Walker, and Mickalene Thomas as well as John Biggers, Barbara Bullock, David Driskell, Joyce Scott, and Sonya Clark, among others. The exhibition brings awareness to the contributions of artists of color, whose work is often historically underrepresented in museums and galleries, to foster a more complete understanding. Constructing Identity includes works by 11 artists whose artwork is also held in the collection of the recently opened National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., as well as Northwest artists such as Portland painter Arvie Smith (whose own exhibition at PAM has been extended through March 12).

As part of a growing and more thoughtful dialogue about how art reflects the experiences of African Americans, Constructing Identity visually represents a cross-section of themes that speak to all of us in voices from communities of color in America.

“Historically, and within African-American communities, a central question is how do we best represent ourselves—and how do these representations come together to form an ever-changing statement of identity?” asks Berrisford Boothe, curator for the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African-American Art. “We offer this art to present a more complete and informed view of African Americans as a people and reveal the dynamic nature, narratives, and impulses that constitute our full humanity.”

Founded in 2006, the Petrucci Family Foundation’s aims to support education and create opportunity for Americans at every stage of and station in life. Its collection of African-American art is a targeted initiative established to focus on, collect, conserve, and exhibit an inspiring range of works, thereby confirming African-American art’s essential place in the history and discourse of American art. The collection celebrates the beauty, compassion, strength, and persistent will within the culture of African Americans. “We want to collect master works that define humanity, that show characters in their full, most authentic human moments,” Boothe says.

Constructing Identity is accompanied by a catalog, an artist panel discussion and artist talks on February 11, and additional programs and community partnerships.

Organized by Portland Art Museum and guest curated by Berrisford Boothe, Professor of Art at Lehigh University.

Visit the museum page: http://portlandartmuseum.org/exhibitions/constructing-identity/