Next year’s exhibitions at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art will include the work of artists from the Black Power movement, paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe and contemporary Native American art.
In a news release Tuesday, the Bentonville museum said it will host the U.S. debut of “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” beginning Feb. 3 and continuing through April 23. The exhibition, which traces the evolution of art in the '60s, '70s and '80s, seeks to define “black art” or “black aesthetic” through painters like Romare Bearden, who began his career painting the American South, and Melvin Edwards, a Texas-native known for his sculptures of the Civil Rights Movement.
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Photos courtesy of Crystal Bridges
Photos courtesy of Crystal Bridges
In May, the gallery will expand its pre-existing collection of O'Keeffe paintings to include some of her major works. The exhibition, entitled “Georgia O'Keeffe and Contemporary Art,” will also feature the work of artists inspired by the New Mexican painter. It runs May 26 through Sept. 3.
Beginning on Oct. 6, the gallery will feature, “Native North America,” an exhibit it says is the first to "chart the development of contemporary Indigenous art from the United States and Canada from the 1960s to the present." That exhibit runs through Jan. 7, 2019.
“Our 2018 exhibitions complement the story of American art shared through our permanent collection,” Executive Director Rod Bigelow said in a statement, adding he hopes the exhibits continue to expand the gallery’s role as a “creator and collaborator in the field of American art.”
Read Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.