Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist

FAIN: GI-50607-13

Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)
Sarah W. Schroth (Project Director: January 2013 to October 2014)

Implementation of a traveling exhibition and a catalog on African American painter Archibald Motley in the context of early-twentieth-century modernism.

The exhibition "Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist" will be the first time Archibald Motley's work is viewed within an early 20th century international modernist context. As a master colorist and radical interpreter of urban culture, Motley is one of the most important, yet least fully known, 20th century American artists. Despite the broad and enormous appeal of his images, the broader public remains unaware of Motley, largely because many of his important paintings remain in private collections, and major museums have not yet had the opportunity to acquire his work. The primary goal of "Archibald Motley" is to make the work of this important African American modernist better known to the wider public and to generate new scholarship on Motley, by placing his art within a larger historical and art historical context.

Associated Products

Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist (Catalog)
Title: Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist
Author: Richard J. Powell
Abstract: Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist is a 176-page catalogue published on the occasion of the first full-scale survey in 20 years of the remarkable paintings of Archibald John Motley, Jr. (1891-1981), a master colorist and radical interpreter of urban culture. The catalogue includes an essay and timeline by Richard J. Powell, guest curator and John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University, where he has taught since 1989. Essay writers include Davarian L. Baldwin (Professor of American Studies, Trinity College, Hartford, CT), David C. Driskell (Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland at College Park, MD), Olivier Meslay (Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs, Dallas Museum of Art), Amy Mooney (Associate Professor of Art History, Columbia College, Chicago) and Ishmael Reed (poet, essayist and novelist). Publication of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Distributed by Duke University Press. The catalogue is available in the Nasher Museum Store.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/archibald-motley-jazz-age-modernist/oclc/864788447&referer=brief_results
Secondary URL: http://nasher.duke.edu/motley/catalogue/
Catalog Type: Exhibition Catalog
Publisher: Duke University Press

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