I can’t seem to escape wooden carved masks at auction these days. They keep turning up and I’m not quite sure why. It’s working out for me because I’m on the lookout for items to offer…
Category: Art
I could almost hear the man singing his heart out as he stood strumming his guitar next to his singing partner who was cupping a mike close to his mouth. It was so close that I first thought he…
I’ve seen the little shoes that parents have cast in bronze as a memory of the time when their babies were cute and little and oh-so-precious. Imagine my surprise when I came upon a whole baby…
African wooden masks and carvings seemed to be cropping up more often at the auctions I attend. I wondered if people were shedding their links to the motherland and re-decorating, or families were discarding leftovers…
Some years ago, I was at a gallery in the Washington, DC, area, and almost bought an etching by artist Joseph Holston. I don’t remember the image in the etching but it was apparently something…
A shout-out to women on their very own month
Posted in African American women, Art, Black history, Books, Civil War, Cooking, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and slavery
I was reading an email a few days ago that reminded me that this month was Women’s History Month. Why are people whom society considers marginal given a small piece of the year to spotlight their…
Wow, I thought as I saw the dusty stone African figures on the auction website. It was déjà vu, because I had seen an exact piece like it at another auction a week ago. It…
The art of Samuel Countee
Posted in Art
The disappointment in my friend’s Valorie’s voice was palpable. She had missed the amazing oil painting of a guitar player by an African American artist named Samuel Countee. It was hanging on a wall near…
The many sides of African American art
Posted in Art
My friend Kristin was staring at a painting when I walked up to her. That looks like a woman’s hat, she said, nodding to a fuzzy mix of flowers on a canvas before us. As soon…
My friend Valorie pulled me aside as I stood listening to a curator expounding on artist Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting “The Annunciation,” its brilliant light and shadows illuminating not only the painting itself but its message.…