5 Powerful Stories on Black Art History - The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2024)

This February, we’re celebrating Black History Month at The Met. But for African Americans such as myself, every month is Black History Month. So we’re taking this opportunity to celebrate the Black art and identities that have been crucial in shaping art history for years—and will continue to shape it for many more to come. Here are just five of the many stories of Black art, culture, and history interwoven throughout The Met collection.

“How do you paint your own slave?” Painter Julie Mehretu analyzes Velázquez

“Looking at his expression I’m moved, almost to tears. That’s not often that a painting can do that.”

People of color are under-represented and under-recognized throughout Western art history, both as subjects and as artists. Rarer even is their appearance in dignified portraiture like that of Diego Velázquez, a seventeenth-century painter known for his depictions of Spanish royalty. Juan de Pareja was Velázquez’s enslaved assistant, and was later liberated to become a great painter in his own right. So—“How do you paint your own slave?” asks contemporary artist Julie Mehretu, and why? In this episode of The Artist Project, Mehretu, whose work challenges sociopolitical constructs of the past and present, helps unpack this painting’s emotional story.

Dancer Omari Mizrahi on Mark Bradford’s painting Duck Walk

Dancer Omari Mizrahi (Ousmane Wiles) received the status of Legend in the House of Mizrahi after ten years competing in the Vogue Ballroom scene in New York City. When asked to respond to Mark Bradford’s 2016 painting Duck Walk, Omari connects the evolution of voguing to the colorful movement in Bradford’s painting: “Voguing is evolving and the ballroom scene is evolving, but we’re trying to keep the history and the traditions alive as much as much as possible, and I think he’s doing that with abstraction.” As Omari spends more time with the work (and dances with it), we see the power in Bradford’s Abstract Expressionism and its connection to motion, performativity, and everyday life.

A poet’s response to Jean-Baptise Carpeaux’s Why Born Enslaved!

My name, for now, is my body
Soft in flesh but louder in stone.

In this video, Wendy S. Walters recites the poem she wrote in response to Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s 1873 sculpture Why Born Enslaved! The sculpture is one that is undeniably beautiful, and yet deals with the most painful moment in our history. It asks us to condemn the horror that is slavery, and yet this woman’s identity is still anonymous, her body still an object for our consumption. Walters’s poetic words confront this conflict in Why Born Enslaved! and help us imagine how this anonymous woman might have thought and felt.

Scholar David Driskell on Aaron Douglas’s painting Let My People Go

“Can a work of art reclaim history?”

David C. Driskell was a leading scholar of African American art and an artist whose work played a pivotal role in gaining mainstream recognition for the Black art community. His 1976 landmark exhibition,Two Centuries of Black American Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, was the first of its kind and paved the way for scholarship on African American art, history, and culture.

In this video, Driskell uplifts the work of Aaron Douglas, a prominent visual artist of the Harlem Renaissance. Douglas’s painting Let My People Go (ca. 1935–39) evokes God’s command to Moses to lead the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt and into freedom, and relates this biblical story to the modern oppression of African Americans. Through Douglas’s painting, Driskell sheds light upon themes of liberation, enlightenment, and empowerment that resonate with the African American experience today.

Dariel Vasquez in “Belonging,” episode 11 of Met Stories

Visiting an institution like The Met—facing its massive staircase and a collection that spans millennia—it’s easy to feel like you don’t belong. Its art tells vast stories of countless cultures, and yet so often fails to tell the stories of people who look like us. This is how Dariel Vasquez, cofounder and executive director of Brothers@, felt even growing up in nearby Harlem. In this episode of Met Stories, Dariel talks about how he was able not only to overcome that feeling, but to fall in love with the art and make the space his own.

There is so much more content to check out and for all ages to enjoy. Head to our YouTube channel and Perspectives for more video and editorial pieces celebrating Black art and identities in conversation with The Met collection.

Editors’ Note: An earlier version of this article misstated that people of color are under-represented throughout art history. The article was corrected on March 5, 2021, to clarify the intended reference to Western art history specifically. The editors regret this error.

5 Powerful Stories on Black Art History - The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2024)

FAQs

5 Powerful Stories on Black Art History - The Metropolitan Museum of Art? ›

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world's largest and finest art museums. Its collections include 1.5 million works of art spanning 5,000 years of world culture, from prehistory to the present and from every part of the globe.

What is the Met Museum famous for? ›

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world's largest and finest art museums. Its collections include 1.5 million works of art spanning 5,000 years of world culture, from prehistory to the present and from every part of the globe.

Who was the first black artist Museum of modern art? ›

1937: WILLIAM EDMONDSON (c. 1874-1951) is the first African American artist to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Born to freed slaves in Tennessee, Edmondson never learned to read or write, working a succession of manual labor jobs until a vision from God compelled him to sculpt.

What is the theme for Black History Month 2024? ›

The 2024 theme, “African Americans and the Arts,” explores the creativity, resilience and innovation from a culture that has uplifted spirits and soothed souls in countless ways across centuries.

Who is the father of black art? ›

Aaron Douglas (1899–1979) is known as the “father of African American art.” He defined a modern visual language that represented black Americans in a new light.

What is the oldest thing in The Met museum? ›

Among the oldest items at the Met, a set of Archeulian flints from Deir el-Bahri which date from the Lower Paleolithic period (between 300,000 and 75,000 BCE), are part of the Egyptian collection. The first curator was Albert Lythgoe, who directed several Egyptian excavations for the museum.

What is the most famous thing in The Met museum? ›

Exploring the Masterpieces: Famous Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • "The Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh. ...
  • "The Harvesters" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. ...
  • "Madame X" by John Singer Sargent. ...
  • "Washington Crossing the Delaware" by Emanuel Leutze. ...
  • "Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Johannes Vermeer.
Jul 20, 2023

Who is a famous black art person? ›

Witness the enduring mark Black artists have made on American art through more than two centuries of Black art in our collection — from 19th century painters Joshua Johnson and Robert Seldon Duncanson to modern and contemporary artists Faith Ringgold, Alma Thomas, Romare Bearden, Kara Walker, and more.

Who was the first black artist in history? ›

Henry Ossawa Tanner (June 21, 1859 – May 25, 1937) was an American artist who spent much of his career in France. He became the first African-American painter to gain international acclaim. Tanner moved to Paris, France, in 1891 to study at the Académie Julian and gained acclaim in French artistic circles.

What is the history of black arts? ›

The Black Arts Movement started in 1965 when poet Amiri Baraka [LeRoi Jones] established the Black Arts Repertory Theater in Harlem, New York, as a place for artistic expression. Artists associated with this movement include Audre Lorde, Ntozake Shange, James Baldwin, Gil Scott-Heron, and Thelonious Monk.

What happened on February 22 in Black history? ›

On this day February 22nd in 1989, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince won the first rap Grammy for their single “Parents Just Don't Understand.” “Parents Just Don't Understand” is the second single from DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince's second studio album, He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper.

Which president made Black History Month? ›

Woodson and other prominent African Americans. President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976, calling upon the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

What happened on February 5th in Black history? ›

In 1950 on this day, singer Natalie Cole was born. – In 1962 on this day, a suit seeking to bar Englewood, N.J., from maintaining “racial segregated” elementary schools was filed in U.S. District Court. – In 1990 on this day, Barack Obama became the first black man named president of the Harvard Law Review.

Who owns the blackest Black artist? ›

British sculptor Anish Kapoor made history when he bought exclusive rights to the Vantablack pigment, aka the world's “blackest black.”

Who is the white art guy with the afro? ›

Bob Ross

Who named Goya's black paintings? ›

Goya did not give titles to the paintings, or if he did, he never revealed them. Most names used for them are designations employed by art historians. Initially, they were catalogued in 1828 by Goya's friend, Antonio Brugada.

What is the most famous part of the Met? ›

The 19th and Early 20th Century European wing boasts some of the museum's most famous pieces, including works by Auguste Rodin (Gallery 800), paintings by Claude Monet (Gallery 819) and other Impressionists (Gallery 822), and Pablo Picasso's famous 1906 portrait of Gertrude Stein (Gallery 830, on the way to the Modern/ ...

What is the most valuable thing at the Met? ›

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has acquired the last painting by Duccio di Buoninsegna, a devotional panel of the Madonna and Child above a painted, inlaid parapet, considered a landmark in the history of devotional imagery–from the Stoclet family in Brussels, Belgium for around $45 million, making it the single most ...

Is the Met the largest art museum in the US? ›

Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met)—New York, NY: The Met is famous worldwide for its very diverse and expansive collection—in fact, more than two million works are housed here, divided into nineteen different departments. It is the largest museum in the United States.

What is the most popular exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? ›

1,659,647 Visitors to Costume Institute's Heavenly Bodies Show at Met Fifth Avenue and Met Cloisters Make It the Most Visited Exhibition in The Met's History.

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