The Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art

Synopsis

Dr. Walter O. Evans first purchased a portfolio of prints by Jacob Lawrence in the late 1970s. Now, more than 20 years after acquiring his first piece of fine art, Dr. Evans owns a phenomenal collection that ranges from choice works by the expatriate artists Mary Edmonia Lewis and Henry Ossawa Tanner to noteworthy pieces by the celebrated innovators Charles White, Richard Hunt, and Archibald J. Motley, Jr. "The Evans Collection" also contains the greatest number of works by foremost artists Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden in private hands. "The Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art" features a broad selection of outstanding works from this important private collection. Eighty colour plates illustrate the aesthetic legacy created by African American artists over more than 150 years. The pioneering landscape painters Edward Mitchell Bannister, Robert Scott Duncanson, and Charles Ethan Porter are represented, as are the modern artists Richmond Barthe and Aaron Douglas, who were progressive participants in the flowering of African American culture during the Harlem Renaissance. Also included are paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by Elizabeth Catlett, Eldzier Cortor, and Horace Pippin, artists first acclaimed during the 1930s and 1940s. In addition the book documents the work of other modern artists such as Beauford Delaney, Norman Lewis, and Alma Thomas, who experimented with form and abstraction in recent decades. In an introduction and substantive essays four notable scholars examine the visual, social, and political contexts that influenced the artists. Dr. Evans contributes a personal statement about the joy he finds in collecting - and his desire to advance knowledge of and appreciation for the rich heritage created by American artists of African descent.