This story was originally published by ArtsATL.
An exhibition of artwork from the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art will travel to five institutions across the country over the next 2 1/2 years, starting this fall at Vassar College.
“Silver Linings: Celebrating the Spelman Art Collection” features works by nearly 40 artists of African descent, spanning the early 20th century to the present.
The tour starts in September at Vassar College’s Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center in Poughkeepsie, New York. Like Spelman, Vassar was founded to educate women, but Vassar began accepting men in the late 1960s. Atlanta’s Spelman remains a historically Black college for women.
Credit: Courtesy of Spelman College Museum of Fine Art
Credit: Courtesy of Spelman College Museum of Fine Art
“Spelman’s art collection has long been regarded as a hidden gem, and we have lent individual works of art for many years,” Liz Andrews, executive director of the museum, said in a statement. “Our hope is that this tour will raise awareness of the work we are doing in Atlanta to uplift Black women artists.”
Curated by Andrews and curator-in-residence Karen Comer Lowe, “Silver Linings” opened at Spelman Museum in 2022 to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The tour is the first in the museum’s history.
The exhibit emphasizes the important role of historically Black colleges and universities for Black artists, the museum said in the statement.
Credit: Courtesy of Spelman College Museum of Fine Art
Credit: Courtesy of Spelman College Museum of Fine Art
Exhibited artists include Emma Amos, Herman “Kofi” Bailey, Romare Bearden, Betty Blayton, Selma Burke, Elizabeth Catlett, Renée Cox, Sam Gilliam, Samella Lewis, Lorna Simpson, Henry Ossawa Tanner and Carrie Mae Weems.
Mary-Kay Lombino, deputy director and curator at Vassar’s Loeb Art Center, said in a statement that she was “struck by the strength and depth of the collection” when she saw it in Atlanta.
After Vassar College, “Silver Linings” will travel to the Boise Art Museum in Idaho, the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, the University of Florida’s Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville and the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The exhibition is set to return to Spelman in January 2026.
Credit: Courtesy of Spelman College Museum of Fine Art
Credit: Courtesy of Spelman College Museum of Fine Art
Credit: ArtsATL
Credit: ArtsATL
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