UMW Voice
Healing through art: UMW Galleries bring focus to African American visual arts
By Lindley Estes
February 2, 2022
Through the months of February and March, the University of Mary Washington Galleries is showing selections from the Petrucci Family Foundation’s Collection of African American Art.
“The objective is healing through art,” Laughlin said. “The African American community has been scarred so frequently, for so long, and again in the last number of years.” This exhibit creates a space that encourages reflection, healing, and regrouping through the lens of Black American history and its preservation.
Read the full article here.
91.3 Lehigh Valley NPR
AT EASTON’S SIGAL MUSEUM, A COLLECTION STEEPED IN AMERICA’S BLACK EXPERIENCE
By Genesis Ortega
November 19, 2021
EASTON, Pa. – The work of Black artists inspired by struggles with American identity, allegiance and belonging is on display at Easton’s Sigal Museum.
“Another American’s Autobiography” is an exhibit that opens Friday, Nov. 19.
A patterned, multicolored cotton quilt is the first thing to catch your eye when the elevator doors open to the Chrin Gallery on the museum’s second floor.
The quilt was sewn by former Lafayette College math professor Chawne Kimber, whose family picked cotton on a Southern plantation at the turn of the 1900s.
Exhibit curator Claudia Volpe said every small stitch on the quilt is intentional, much like the works that are on display. She wanted to set the scene for visitors.
Read the full article here.
Westfield State University
Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African-American Art acquires painting by Westfield State Professor Imo Imeh
WESTFIELD, Mass.—The artwork of Imo Nse Imeh, Ph.D., Westfield State University associate professor of art and art history, has been added to the prominent Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African-American Art.
The New Jersey-based foundation purchased Imeh’s most recent painting, Feeding the Veins of the Earth (Grounded Angel), which is part of his Benediction series. This group of paintings envisions angels sent to Earth to be bonded to the skins of Black men and boys to bear witness to their traumas, triumphs, and lived experiences.
Completed in 2020, Feeding the Veins was created using oil paint, India ink, acrylic ink, and charcoal on unstretched canvas, measuring 100 x 84 inches.
“As stewards of African American art, we look for work that is technically skillful, intellectually engaging, and deeply moving,” said Claudia Volpe, director of the Petrucci Family Foundation. “Dr. Imo Nse Imeh ticks every box in his practice. His Benediction series, in particular, caught our eye. We were struck by Imo’s decision to depict Black men as angels and as God’s direct witnesses to the gravity of living as a Black man in America during a time when it feels as though the struggles that Black Americans face are willfully ignored. Feeding the Veins of the Earth (Grounded Angel) elegantly captures the crushing weight of bearing witness to tragedy, as well as the critical need for these national wounds to be seen and recognized. It is our distinct privilege to include this remarkable piece in the PFF Collection.”
Read the full article here.
Hartford Courant
130 artworks at the Atheneum tell the truth about the black American experience. Here are 8 of them.
By Susan DunneOctober 22, 2019
“Afrocosmologies,” a new exhibit at Wadsworth Atheneum, features 130 artworks by African Americans who seek to present themselves, their world and their histories in their own way, liberated from interpretations foisted upon them by non-blacks throughout the centuries.
The exhibit, which fills galleries on the second and third floors of the Hartford museum, is a dazzling array of works created from 1885 to the present day. A few reflect the sense of anger and sorrow that one would expect considering African Americans’ history of oppression. But most of the works are more celebratory, with artists glorying in their blackness and their freedom to tell the truth as they see it.
Read the full article here.
Connecticut Public Radio
Wadsworth Brings Black Film Weekend to Hartford
By Ryan Lindsay
October 25, 2019
In conjuction with its newest exhibition Afrocosmologies: American Reflections, The Wadsworth Atheneum will host its Black Film Weekend featuring five films that celebrate and reflect stories of Black lives on screen. The films are a mix of fiction and non-fiction, from Toni Morrison and Harriet Tubman to two stories based in Jamaica, including the story of the island’s national men’s soccer team.
Read the full article here.
Oregon Artswatch
Black art: a neverending story
By Bob Hicks
March 4, 2017
The Portland Art Museum’s survey of African American art “Constructing Identity” tells a sprawling and many-sided tale.
Read the full article here.
Lehigh Bulletin
Restoring Lost History
The summer edition of the Lehigh Bulletin featured the work of the Petrucci Family Foundation of African American art. You can download a reprint of the publication below, or read the online version at Restoring Lost History.
Lafayette Magazine
Mending the Gap
Lafayette Magazine published an article about alumni Berrisford Boothe and his work with the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection. Download a reprint of the article below, or read it online at Mending the Gap.