YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The contributions of Black artists will be recognized in February at The Butler Institute of American Art as part of the museum’s Black History Month programming.
Works by important Black artists that are part of the museum’s permanent collection will be displayed throughout the month, and docent-led tours will be offered for area students and adults.
Two special events have also been scheduled.
On Feb. 2, Dr. Dee Banks will give a talk, “10 Contemporary Black Artists,” at 2 p.m. in the Zona Auditorium.
On that same day, an exhibition of works by Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. will open.
Banks, who is well-known locally as an infectious disease specialist, is also an artist. In her presentation, she will discuss the works of Billy Gerard Frank, Barkley Hendricks, Simone Leigh, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Amy Sherald, Mikalene Thomas, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems and Kehinde Wiley.
Some of these artists are represented in The Butler’s collection.
Amos will attend a meet-the-artist reception from 1 to 3 p.m. Feb. 15 for his exhibition, “The Art is on the Wall, Not on the Posters.” Kennedy creates prints, posters and postcards from handset wood and metal type, oil-based inks and eco-friendly and affordable chipboard.
Born in Louisiana in 1950, Kennedy is a printmaker, book artist and papermaker, best known for social and political commentary, particularly in printed posters.
A 1972 graduate of Grambling State University in Louisiana, he earned a master’s degree in fine art from the University of Wisconsin. He later taught graphic design at the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts at Indiana University.
From an early age, Kennedy was interested in letters and books, and he studied calligraphy for several years. At the age of 40, Kennedy visited Colonial Williamsburg, a Virginia living history museum, and was mesmerized by an 18th-century print shop and book bindery demonstration. The incident so influenced him that he studied printing at a community-based letterpress shop in Chicago. Within a year, he quit his AT&T systems analyst job, which he had held for nearly two decades, to continue printmaking studies.
Many of Kennedy’s posters are inspired from proverbs and use quotes that he chooses or that potential clients provide.
Having grown up during the Civil Rights era in the 1960s, Kennedy saw the rise of Black nationalism in the 1970s and uses this history as inspiration in his work.
He is known to use the words of popular activists like Rosa Parks and peaceful protests like the Selma to Montgomery marches to illustrate the names of lost lives during these movements.
Pictured at top: Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. demonstrates his printmaking technique. An exhibition of his works will open Feb. 2 at The Butler.