National Museum for African American History and Culture - on it's way!

The push to create a black museum on the Mall dates to 1915, when a group of black veterans proposed that a memorial to African-Americans be constructed there. Congress actually approved the creation of a black museum in 1929 but refused to provide financing. In the late 1960s, prominent blacks like James Baldwin and Jackie Robinson lobbied Congress to create a national museum of African-American history, but the effort went nowhere.

Read the entire article here

Alvin Ailey Posters!

I love Alvin Ailey posters. They are always so full of beautiful people and costumes. These posters are on sale for $10 (unframed) in the gallery.


Here is the beautiful poster from their 2010 season.  We do not have these :(  but you can get it from their website for $15

Isn't this beautiful! 

All God's Children Figurines

Clara Brown

Clara Brown who rose from slavery to become a businesswoman, charity worker, nurse and humanitarian. The figurine of Miss Brown is available at Lewis Gallery.

 

Georgie

Georgie is so excited as she plays with her new birthday present.  While she snuggles one little rabbit in her arms, she thinks of names for them.  "Your name is Fluffy, and your name can be Snowflake, and your name is... Fuzzy 'cause you look like Papa's beard. 

Mother Mary Lange

Despite being a black woman in a slave state before the Emancipation Proclamation, Elizabeth Clarissa Lange, a Caribbean native, used her own money and home to educate children of color. In 1829, Lange professed her vows and took the religious name of Mary. At a time when African American Catholics could not aspire to religious life, Mary Elizabeth Lange became the first superior general of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first Black Roman Catholic order. She and her sisters would educate and evangelize African Americans. 

All God's Children - Maggie!

 

This little darling is a new arrival to the Lewis Gallery.  Her name is Maggie and she has two hands full of sticky peppermint candy.

"Wait 'til Mama sees all the candy that Papa bought for my birthday party."

Maggie is on sale for $52 and comes with a certificate of authenticity from Miss Martha's Originals Inc.  This piece was created by artist extraordinaire Martha Root.

Give us a call (718) 624-8372 or drop by the gallery to see her in person.

Memory Recycle!

I love to use recycled items in my work.  Here is one piece I did for the holidays, using old photographs, left over mat board and other items found around the house.

Inspiration: Louise Nevelson

Nevelson used found objects or everyday discarded things in her assemblies. "When you put together things that other people have thrown out, you’re really bringing them to life – a spiritual life that surpasses the life for which they were originally created."

I believe it is the artists responsibility to create work out of recycled materials and not add to landfills.

Inspirations: Elizabeth Catlett

Mother and Child, 1944
Elizabeth Catlett (Mexican, born United States, 1915)
Lithograph

Sheet: 12 3/8 x 9 3/8 in. (31.4 x 23.8 cm); image: 7 3/4 x 5 3/4 in. (19.7 x 14.6 cm)
Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 1999 (1999.529.34)

Elizabeth Catlett studied art at Howard University in Washington, D.C., in the 1930s under such notable teachers as Lois Maillou Jones, James Porter, James Wells, and James Herring, and received a master's degree from the State University of Iowa in 1940 where she studied with the painter Grant Wood and sculptor Henry Stinson. Best known for her wood and stone sculptures abstracting archetypal figures of African American women, she has also been a prolific printmaker throughout her long career. The subject of this small lithograph—of maternal love and protection—was repeated many times in her work. As she wrote in 1940 about a related sculpture, her desire was "to create a composition of two figures, one smaller than the other, so interlaced as to be expressive of maternity." In this print, Catlett capitalizes on lithography's ability to produce tonal gradations, articulating the figures with deep shadows and bright highlights to make them appear almost sculptural.

Source: Elizabeth Catlett: Mother and Child (1999.529.34) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art