Who is this artist?
Born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1931, the artist was a legendary painter and printmaker, art historian, curator and scholar who paved the way for new thinking about American Art, beginning with LACMA’s 1976 groundbreaking exhibition, Two Centuries of Black American Art. After attending Howard University, followed by the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1953, the artist worked at Fisk University, playing a central role in overseeing the University’s art collection, and for two decades thereafter taught at the University of Maryland. A small cabin in Falmouth, Maine, purchased in 1961, remained a spiritual home for the artist, who once said, “It’s like a refreshing tonic I dream about when I’m not here”. We celebrate this artist on June 7th on what would have been their 91st birthday.
Answer: David Driskell?
David Driskell, in addition to being a legendary artist, was an art historian, curator, teacher and scholar. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums across the country, and his pioneering scholarship informed the current field of African American Art History. As explained by art critic, John Yau, “Driskell never tried to fit in or accommodate his work to prevailing white, avant-garde styles…Rather, he absorbed aspects of various styles and, in the cauldron of his art practice, welded them to his personal visions-flattened, decorated, and resurfaced in his signature style, color, and calligraphy- and melded these forms with Modernist aesthetics and the tradition of Western art.”
David Driskell was first introduced to Maine when he attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1953. The Maine landscape opened up Driskell’s imagination and allowed him to look at nature differently. David Driskell once said, “I came to the Maine scene with a sense of color already embedded in my mind…But when I got here, things were so different. The light was so different. I was just so taken by the greenery. I started painting pine trees. And I haven’t really stopped.“
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