Roll Call - by Jade Powers & Katelyn D Crawford (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Over 55 years, a museum in the American South has built one of the nation's most significant collections of Black American art.

This new publication offers a comprehensive exploration of every Black American artist represented in the Birmingham Museum of Art, spanning the early 19th century to the present day. The volume features over 250 artworks across various media--paintings, prints, photographs, sculpture, quilts and mixed-media works--by artists living and working both in Alabama and across the United States.

Artists featured include David Driskell, Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Robert S. Duncanson, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Mary Frances Whitfield, Trena Banks, Purvis Young, Glenn Ligon, Edmonia Lewis, Lorna Simpson, Chakaia Booker, Sam Gilliam, Kerry James Marshall, Joshua Johnson, Nick Cave, Elizabeth Catlett, Amalia Amaki and Carrie Mae Weems.

Publication accompanies an exhibition marking the Birmingham Museum of Art, AL's 75th Anniversary celebrations.

About the Author

Katelyn D. Crawford is The William Cary Hulsey Curator of American Art, Birmingham Museum of Art, AL, following a role as assistant curator of American Art at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Earlier positions include a Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellow at the Henry Luce Foundation Inc. and a Terra Foundation Predoctoral Fellow in American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She lives in Birmingham, AL.

Jade Powers is the Hugh Kaul Curator of Contemporary Art, Birmingham Museum of Art, AL. Prior to her current role she was curator of contemporary art at Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, Florida and assistant curator of contemporary art at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri. She lives in Birmingham, AL.

Kelli Morgan is the Founding Executive Director of the Black Artists Archive in Detroit, MI. She has held curatorial positions at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She lives in Detroit.

Imani Perry is Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor in African & African American Studies and Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Perry is the author of nine books, including the New York Times Bestseller South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation which received the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction. imaniperryauthor.com

Laura Woodard is librarian and archivist, Birmingham Museum of Art, AL.