NBAF Presents 2012 National Black Arts Festival
Renowned Worldwide for Showcasing the Very Best of the Culture of the African Diaspora, NBAF presents 2012 National Black Arts Festival, July 6-15, in Atlanta
– “the premier festival of its kind in the United States.” (US Congress H. Res 1286)
- Conversation & Panels
- Theatre Performances
- NBAF Gala: A Ruby Evening
- Turner Voices First Glance Teen Arts Competition
- Coretta Scott King Awards Book Fair
- NBAF @ Centennial Olympic Park: International Marketplace
- Concerts on the Music Stage
- Children’s Education Village: Destination Afrika and Beyond
- Publix Healthy Cooking Pavilion
- Art Exhibitions
Make Plans to Attend Now and Take MARTA to the Festival!
NBAF 2012 Gala
The 2012 Gala will celebrate A Ruby Evening with tributes to the legendary actress Ruby Dee. Guests will enjoy a gala cocktail reception before the main event, featuring film clips from Ruby Dee’s career and other special effects. The auction will be a special feature and guests will be treated to live music from the silver screen and Broadway. The ballroom will dazzle with “ruby décor” and The St. Regis Atlanta will feature its chef-inspired menu and bespoke service. The Save the Date card will be mailed in April, and a formal invitation to the Gala will be mailed in early June. A separate invitation will be mailed to paid sponsors and individual donors for the NBAF Preview Event on May 24, 2012. Early reservations are highly recommended as the Gala is always a sold-out event.
Click here to download more information
Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012)
Sculptor, printmaker, painter Elizabeth Catlett, known for sociopolitical commentary in her work, passed away Monday at her home in Cuernavaca Morelos, Mexico. NBAF has enjoyed a special relationship with her as the very first artist commissioned to create the inaugural National Black Arts Festival commemorative prints, Fiesta and Blues, and exhibition for the National Black Arts Festival in 1988. Most recently, Elizabeth Catlett was among the master artists honored by NBAF at the 2011 National Black Arts Festival for her contributions to the art and culture of the African Diaspora.
“It is with great sadness that we learned of Elizabeth Catlett’s passing,” said Dr. Michael Simanga, NBAF Executive Director. “Her distinct artistic voice and commitment to human rights influenced artists from diverse cultures. She will be missed but her legacy suggests others will follow, making their own voices resonate for the people she loved and spoke for.”
Although Catlett is known primarily for her sculptures, her prints are highly sought after as well. According to Halima Taha, in her book Collecting African American Art: Works on Paper and Canvas; Catlett was “a virtuoso sculptor and printmaker…concerned with social issues affecting African Americans, the Third World, and women [everywhere].”
ABOUT ELIZABETH CATLETT
Elizabeth Catlett, the granddaughter of enslaved people, was born into a middle-class Washington family; her father was a professor of mathematics at Tuskegee Institute. Denied entrance into the Carnegie Institute of Technology because she was black, Catlett enrolled at Howard University (B.A., c. 1936), where she studied design, printmaking, and drawing and was influenced by the art theories of Alain Locke and James A. Porter. While working as a muralist for two months during the mid-1930s with the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration, she became influenced by the social activism of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera.
Catlett became the first student to earn a master’s degree of fine arts in sculpture at the University of Iowa in 1940. The Regionalist painter Grant Wood, a professor at the university at the time, encouraged her to present images drawn from black culture and experience and influenced her decision to concentrate on sculpture. After holding several teaching positions and continuing to expand her range of media, Catlett went to Mexico City in 1946 to work at the Taller de Gráfica Popular, an artists’ collective. There, along with her then-husband, the artist Charles White, she created prints depicting Mexican life. As a left-wing activist, she endured investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee during the 1950s. About 1962, she took Mexican citizenship.
Catlett is known largely for her sculpture, especially for works such as Homage to My Young Black Sisters (1968) and various mother-child pairings, the latter of which became one of her central themes. She was also an accomplished printmaker who valued prints for their affordability and hence their accessibility to many people. Catlett alternately chose to illustrate famous subjects, such as Harriet Tubman and Malcolm X, and anonymous workers—notably strong, solitary black women—as depicted in the terra-cotta sculpture Negro Woman (c. 1960) and the prints Sharecropper (1968) and Survivor (c. 1978).
Click here for more information on Elizabeth Catlett.
Artist Lecture Faith Ringgold: More Than 60 Years of Making Art
NBAF joins Spelman College Museum of Fine Art on Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 6:30 PM for a very special Artist Lecture with Faith Ringgold. This program is free and open to the public. Capacity is limited so registration is required. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!
Faith Ringgold, began her artistic career more than 35 years ago as a painter. Today, she is best known for her painted story quilts — art that combines painting, quilted fabric and storytelling. She has exhibited in major museums in the USA, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. She is in the permanent collection of many museums including the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art. Her first book, Tar Beach was a Caldecott Honor Book and winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration, among numerous other honors. She has written and illustrated eleven children’s books. She has received more than 75 awards, fellowships, citations and honors, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Fellowship for painting, two National Endowment for the Arts Awards and seventeen honorary doctorates, one of which is from her alma mater The City College of New York.
This program is organized in collaboration with Spelman’s Department of Art and Art History, English Department, Women’s Resource Center, Sociology and Anthropology Department, the Social Justice Fellows Program and the UNCF/Mellon Programs.
She Writes/She Reads Artist Talk with Photographer Sue Ross
Thursday March 1, 2012 – Thursday March 1, 2012
101 Auburn Avenue, NE
Description:
Thursday, March 1, 2012, 6pm- 8pm, Auburn Avenue Research Library. Free and Open to the Public. PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED.
NBAF, In partnership with the Auburn Avenue Research Library, presents “She Writes/She Reads” an exhibition by photographer Sue Ross. The exhibition runs March 1 – 31, 2012. Ms. Ross will conduct an Artist Talk, March 1, 2012, at 6PM at the Auburn Avenue Research Library.
In the African tradition, a Griot is the oral historian portraying the cultural essence of a community through the “Word”. Susan J. “Sue” Ross, the PhotoGriot, tells the stories of our community through her eye and the lens of her camera. The daughter of a cultural anthropologist and a social worker, Sue is an artist and cultural worker using the medium of photography to document the social, political and cultural experiences of the community. Her exhibit will feature photographs of African American women authors.
For additional information about this event, please contact Dr. Collette M. Hopkins at chopkins@nbaf.org or 404.224.3464.
