Black History On Display At City Hall

PHOTO: “Jewel, the mixed-media portrait by Sankofa board member and Cleveland artist Gary Williams is one of more than 20 original works of art on display at Cleveland City Hall in honor of Black History Month.”

Black history on display at City Hall: Sankofa Fine Art Plus hosts exhibit of original works by local and national African-American artists through February!

Feb. 6, 2012 (Cleveland, OH) – Sankofa Fine Art Plus is celebrating Black History Month with the City of Cleveland in the way it has always celebrated Black History: through visual arts.

For a special exhibit on display in the Rotunda and on the second floor of Cleveland City Hall, Sankofa is contributing more than 20 original works by 10 local and nationally known fine artists which portray their individual interpretations of Black History.  Naturally, President Barack Obama features prominently in the artists’ visions of what Black History means to them.

The exhibit will be on view through Feb. 29 at City Hall, 601 Lakeside Ave.

Sankofa is especially proud to display among the works Kadir Nelson’s “Frederick Douglass,” the oil portrait of its namesake as a young man which debuted as the commemorative print for its 2011 Cleveland Fine Art Expo.  Nelson, who was selected as the featured artist for the annual fine art showplace, is an award-winning visual artist, author and illustrator whose vibrant and striking oil images have brought to life the pages of contemporary children’s biographies of African American heroes such as Louis Armstrong, Shirley Chisholm, Jackie Robinson and Rube Foster, founder and president of the Negro National Baseball League.

Two other Nelson portraits join a variety of paintings and mixed-media works by fellow former Sankofa Expo featured artists Paul Goodnight, Jerome White, Akron sculptor and painter Woodrow Nash and Cleveland visual artist Neal Hamilton, whose acrylic portraits of President Barack Obama and The First Lady will be on display.

A host of talented local and national artists whose works are also part of the exhibit are Cleveland artist B. Reid, with pastel portraits of President Obama and slain hip hop star Tupac Shakur; Philadelphia visual artist Robin Robinson; Cleveland artist Ricky Smith; Santana Stokes, of Cleveland; Cleveland painter Bob Walls; Sankofa board member and Cleveland multi-media artist Gary Williams; Cleveland artist Garner Lewis; and Lorraine Johnson, another Cleveland talent with an acrylic portrait of President Obama.

Hamilton’s, Smith’s and Stokes’ works are on view on the first floor.  All others can be seen on the second floor, outside City Council Chambers.

The exhibit is free and open to the public during the hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Founded in 1999, Sankofa Fine Art Plus is a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing, educating and advocating for African American and other underrepresented visual artists through community collaboration.  Sankofa receives public support with local tax dollars from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture to preserve and enrich our region’s artistic and cultural heritage.

The Russell and Rowena Jelliffe Collection: Prints and Drawings from the Karamu Workshop

Charles L. Sallee, Jr. ‘Swingtime’

The Russell and Rowena Jelliffe Collection: Prints and Drawings from the Karamu Workshop at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage September through December 2011

In 1910, amid segregation, race riots and great social change, Russell Jelliffe and Rowena Woodham met at Oberlin College. She was president of the Oberlin Women’s Suffrage League; he had seen a black friend turned away from the YMCA as a boy. They bonded through a shared belief that race didn’t have to be a destructive, divisive force. After marriage in 1915, they were invited to Cleveland by the Men’s Club of the Second Presbyterian Church to organize a settlement house, and moved to Cleveland’s “Roaring Third” Ward. This potent team shared the belief that they could effect positive change by bringing together blacks and whites to work together on something of need to the community.

In this spirit, they founded the Playhouse Settlement, later renamed Karamu House, a multiracial gathering place where community members explored the performing and fine arts. In a 1989 interview, Rowena described their concept –“People, from the beginning of time, seem to have understood each other best when they shared their culture.”

A group of talented African-American artists, trained at Karamu during this time, gained recognition both in the city and across the nation for their vibrant and dramatic artworks that depicted the truths about life in Cleveland during the Great Depression. The Jelliffes themselves gathered a dynamic collection of prints, drawings and paintings, given to Cleveland State University after their deaths.

This important and powerful collection, a window to a turbulent and creative time in American history, will be displayed at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, in cooperation with Cleveland State University, mid-September through December 2011. Artists represented in the exhibition are Richard R. Beatty, Elmer W. Brown, Fred Carlo, Zell Ingram, Charles L.  Sallee, Jr., Hughie Lee-Smith, William E. Smith and Curtis E. Tann.