RICHARD J. POWELL
John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art & Art History and
Professor of African/African American Studies, Duke University
EDUCATION
| 1988 | Ph.D., History of Art. Yale University, New Haven, CT |
| Dissertation: William H. Johnson: Expressionist and Artist of the Blues Aesthetic | |
| 1984 | M.Phil., History of Art. Yale University, New Haven, CT |
| 1982 | M.A., Afro-American Studies. Yale University, New Haven, CT |
| 1977 | M.F.A., Printmaking. Howard University, Washington, DC |
| 1975 | B.A., Art. Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA |
EXPERIENCE
| 2007-10 | Editor-in-Chief, The Art Bulletin, College Art Association, New York, NY |
| 1989- | Professor (2001- the present); Professor and Chair (1998-2001); Associate Professor and Chair (1996-98); Associate Professor(1992-96); & Assistant Professor(1989-92), Department of Art and Art History, Duke University, Durham , NC |
| 1987-89 | Director of Programs, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC |
| 1985-87 | Predoctoral Fellow, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution , Washington, DC |
| 1986 | Visiting Professor, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT |
| 1983-84 | Guest Curator/Consultant, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL |
| 1983 | Visiting Fellow, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT |
| 1982 | Adjunct Professor, University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT |
| 1978-80 | Instructor, Norfolk State University, Norfolk, VA |
PUBLICATIONS: BOOKS
Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Black Art: A Cultural History , London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd., 2002 (Revised & expanded edition of Black Art & Culture in the 20th Century, 1997). Spanish translation: Arte y Cultura Negros en el Siglo XX, Barcelona: Ediciones Destino, S.A., 1998.
Jacob Lawrence (for the Rizzoli Art Series), New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1992.
Homecoming: The Art and Life of William H. Johnson , New York: W.W. Norton, 1991 (originally Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1991).
PUBLICATIONS: EXHIBITION CATALOGS, SOLE OR PRINCIPAL AUTHOR
Circle Dance: The Art of John T. Scott, Jackson : University of Mississippi, 2005.
Beauford Delaney: The Color Yellow, Atlanta : High Museum of Art, 2002.
To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Cambridge : MIT Press, 1999.
Rhapsodies in Black: The Art of the Harlem Renaissance, London & Berkeley: University of California, 1997.
The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism , Washington, D.C.: Washington Project for the Arts, 1989.
From the Potomac to the Anacostia: Art and Ideology in the Washington Area , Washington, D.C.: Washington Project for the Arts, 1989.
James Lesesne Wells: Sixty Years in Art , Washington, D.C.: Washington Project for the Arts, 1986.
PUBLICATIONS: JOURNAL ARTICLES
“The Picturesque, Miss Nottage and the Caribbean Sublime,” Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 25 (February 2008): 157-168.
“Linguists, Poets, and ‘Others’ on African American Art,” American Art 17 (Spring 2003): 16-19.
“Appreciation. Jacob Lawrence: Keep on Movin’” American Art 15 (Spring 2001): 90-93.
“Art of the Harlem Renaissance,” American Art Review 10 (March-April 1998): 132-137.
“Cinqué: Antislavery Portraiture and Patronage in Jacksonian America,” American Art 11 (Fall 1997): 48-73.
“Art, History, and Vision,” Art Bulletin 77 (September 1995): 379-382.
"Images and Identities: A Brief, Introductory Note," The International Review of African American Art 11 (No. 3): 6.
"The Art of Raymond Saunders: Colored," New Observations 97 (Sept./Oct. 1993): 10-15.
"Journeying Beyond: The Prints and Paintings of Joyce Wellman," The International Review of African American Art 10 (No. 3): 4-11, 26-27.
"Richard Powell: On Alain Locke and James Porter," Hatch-Billops Collection, Inc./Artist and Influence 11 (1992): 1-8.
"What Becomes a Legend Most? Reflections on Romare Bearden," Transition 55 (Spring 1992): 62-72.
"'In My Family of Primitiveness and Tradition:' William H. Johnson's Jesus and the Three Marys," American Art 5 (Fall 1991): 20-33.
"Margo Humphrey: Interview," Hatch-Billops Collection, Inc./Artist and Influence 5 (1987): 56-65.
"William H. Johnson's Minde Kerteminde," Siksi: The Nordic Art Review 1 (1986): 17-23.
"On Exhibit: Black Artists of the Nineteenth Century," The Chicago Reader ( 16 August 1985): 10-11.
"African Art at the Field Museum," African Arts 18 (Feb. 1985): 24-36, 101.
African and Afro-American Art: Call and Response , Chicago: Field Museum, 1984, n.p.
"Black Folk Art in America, 1930 - 1980," Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin (April 1984): 11-18.
"Current Expressions in Afro-American Printmaking," PrintNews 3 (April/May 1981): 7-11.
"The Afro-American Printmaking Tradition," PrintNews 3 (Feb/Mar 1981): 3-7.
"9/9," The New Art Examiner 7 (June 1980): 10-11.
"Talking to James Lesesne Wells," Print Review 9 (1979): 65-75.
"Houston Conwill," Neworld (Feb/Mar 1979): n.p.
PUBLICATIONS: BOOKS & EXHIBITION CATALOGS, CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR
"Barkley L. Hendricks, Anew," in Barkley L. Hendricks/Birth of the Cool, ed. Trevor Schoonmaker, Durham: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, 2008, 38-57.
"A Conversation with Martin Puryear," in Martin Puryear, ed. John Elderfield, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2007, 99-110.
"The Aaron Douglas Effect," in Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist, ed. Susan Earle, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007, 53-73.
"Changing, Conjuring Reality" in Conjuring Bearden, Durham, NC: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, 2006, 19-31.
“Racial Imaginaries, from Charles White’s Preacher to Jean-Paul Goude and Grace Jones’ Nigger Arabesque” in Back to Black: Art, Cinema and the Racial Imaginary, London: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 2005, 9-27.
“On James A. Porter’s and (our) Modern Negro Art,” in A Proud Continuum: Eight Decades of Art at Howard University, Washington, DC: Howard University Gallery of Art, 2005, 25-28.
“To Be Real,” in The Barkley L. Hendricks Experience, New London, Connecticut: Lyman Allyn Museum of Art, Connecticut College, 2001, 13-15.
“Sartor Africanus,” in Dandies: Fashion and Finesse in Art and Culture, ed. Susan Fillin-Yeh. New York: New York University Press, 2001, 217-242.
“Harmonizer of Chaos,” in Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence, ed. Peter Nesbett and Michelle DuBois, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000, 147-163.
“Conjuring Canes and Bible Quilts: Through the Prism of Nineteenth Century African American Spirituality,” in African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush. New York: Continuum, 2000, 342-354.
“Lamentations from the ‘Hood,” in Kerry James Marshall/Mementos, Chicago: The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, 2000, 31-47.
“The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism,” in African American Literary Criticism, 1773 to 2000, ed. Hazel Arnett Ervin, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1999, 289-302.
"Art History and Black Memory: Towards a 'Blues Aesthetic,'" in The Jazz Cadence of American Culture , ed. Robert G. O’Meally, New York: Columbia University Press, 1998, 182-195.
“Introduction: Faith Ringgold’s French Connection,” in Dancing at the Louvre: Faith Ringgold’s French Collection and Other Story Quilts, ed. Dan Cameron, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, 1-3.
“In My Family of Primitiveness and Tradition”: William H. Johnson’s Jesus and the Three Marys,” in Critical Issues in American Art: A Book of Readings, ed. Mary Ann Calo, New York: Westview Press, 1998, 285-294.
[Untitled Essay], in Bill Traylor Drawings from the Collection of Joe and Pat Wilkinson, New York: Sotheby’s, December 3, 1997, 38.
"Two paintings by William H. Johnson," in The Seductions of Biography, ed., Mary Rhiel and David Suchoff, London: Routledge, 1996, 89-97.
“The Return to Bertrandville,” in Willie Birch: From Bertrandville to Brooklyn, Winston-Salem, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, 1995, 13-16.
"African American Postmodernism and David Hammons: Body and Soul," in African American Visual Aesthetics: A Postmodernist View , ed., David C. Driskell, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, 121-138.
"Immeasurably Unbound," in African-American Art: 20th Century Masterworks II, New York: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 1995, n.p.
"Art History and Black Memory: Towards a 'Blues Aesthetic,'" in History and Memory in African American Culture, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, 228-243.
"Midnight Sons: On African-American Artists in Scandinavia" in The Art of Ronald Burns, Atlanta, GA: Spelman College, 1994, n.p.
"Re-Creating American History" and "Biblical and Spiritual Motifs" in I Tell My Heart: The Art of Horace Pippin, New York: Universe, 1993, 70-81, 124-135.
"Face to Face: Elizabeth Catlett's Graphic Work," Elizabeth Catlett: Works on Paper, 1944-1992, Hampton, Virginia: Hampton University Museum, 1993, 49-53.
"Anansi Revisited," Keith Morrison, New York: Alternative Museum, 1990, 4-5.
"Shades of Grey in the Black Aesthetic," in Next Generation: Southern Black Aesthetic, Winston-Salem : Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, 1990 (with Judith Wilson), 24-30.
"William H. Johnson and the Harmon Foundation: A Study in Afro-American Patronage," in Against the Odds: African-American Artists and the Harmon Foundation, ed. Gary Reynolds andBeryl Wright, Newark: The Newark Museum, 1989, 88-97.
"1920 - 1950: From Renaissance to Realization," in African-American Artists, 1880 - 1987: Selections from the Evans-Tibbs Collection , Seattle: Washington, 1989, 40-71.
"Winslow Homer, Afro-Americans, and the 'New Order of Things,'" in Winslow Homer's Images of Blacks: The Civil War and the Reconstruction Years , ed. Peter Wood and Karen C.C. Dalton, Austin: University of Texas, 1988, 9-12, 108-110.
FILM, VIDEO, AUDIO & DIGITALLY-BASED PROJECTS
Rhapsodies in Black: Music and Words from the Harlem Renaissance, 2000. 10 page manuscript, essay, and “creative consultant” for a CD box set, Rhino Records R2 79874.
To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities: The Digital Exhibition, March 2000. 30 page manuscript and recorded narration of thevirtual exhibition tour (at http://www.africana.com).
EXHIBITIONS CURATED
| 2006 | Conjuring Bearden, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC (With Alicia Garcia, Margaret Di Giulio, Victoria Trout, & Christine Wang). |
| 2005 | Back to Black: Art, Cinema and the Racial Imaginary, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, England (With Petrine Archer-Straw & David A. Bailey. Toured England). |
| 2005 | Circle Dance: The Art of John T. Scott, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA. |
| 2002 | Beauford Delaney: The Color Yellow, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA (Toured nationally). |
| 1999 | To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, and the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA (With Jock Reynolds. Toured nationally). |
| 1998 | Beyond Mere Likeness: Portraits from Africa and the African Diaspora, Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, NC (With Alexander Byrd). |
| 1997 | Rhapsodies in Black: The Art of the Harlem Renaissance, Hayward Gallery, London, England and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington , D.C (With David A. Bailey. Toured UK & US). |
| 1992 | Liberian Landscapes: Art and Life in West Africa, Duke-Semans Fine Arts Foundation and the Duke University Museum of Art , Durham, NC (Toured North Carolina and Virginia). |
| 1991 | Homecoming: William H. Johnson and Afro-America, 1938 - 1946, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution , Washington, DC (Toured nationally). |
| 1989 | The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC (Toured nationally). |
| 1989 | From the Potomac to the Anacostia: Art and Ideology in the Washington Area, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC. |
| 1988 | African-American Artists, 1880 - 1987: Selections from the Evans-Tibbs Collection, Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service , Washington, DC (With Guy McElroy and Sharon Patton. Toured nationally). |
| 1986 | James Lesesne Wells: Sixty Years in Art, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC (With Jock Reynolds. Toured nationally). |
| 1984 | African Insights: Sources for Afro-American Art and Culture, Field Museum of Natural History , Chicago, IL. |
| 1979 | Impressions/Expressions: Black American Graphics, Studio Museum in Harlem , New York, NY (Toured nationally). |
AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS, & GRANTS
| 2007 | The Voyager Foundation, Publication Subvention Grant |
| 2001 | John Hope Franklin Center Faculty Residency Fellowship, Duke University |
| 1999 | John Spencer Bassett Named Professorship, Duke University |
| 1995-96 | Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship |
| National Humanities Center Fellowship and Residency | |
| 1994 | Ednah Root Visiting Curatorship in American Art, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco |
| 1992-93 | W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research Fellowship, Harvard University |
| 1992-93 | National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers |
| 1986 | Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship |
| 1985-86 | Predoctoral Fellowship, Smithsonian Institution |
| 1984 | Fulbright Grant for Graduate Study Abroad |
| 1982 | Alexander Bouchet Award for Outstanding Master's Thesis, Yale University |
| Graduate Fellowship, Smithsonian Institution | |
| 1980-84 | Graduate and Professional Opportunities Fellowship (U.S. Office of Education) and Yale University Fellowship for Graduate Study |
| 1980 | National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, Summer Seminars (Yale University) |
| 1977-78 | Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
| 1976 | Graduate Research Assistantship, Department of Prints and Drawings, National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution |
| 1975-77 | National Fellowship Fund for Graduate Education |
| 1974 | Charles Merrill Foreign Travel Scholarship |
CURRENT RESEARCH & WORKS-IN-PROGRESS
Flower Paintings of the Americas; Cinema & Black Visual Culture; a Novel in Progress.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & REFERENCES PROVIDED UPON REQUEST