Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw in Penn Today

New Arthur Ross Gallery show explores the legacy of artist, scholar, and curator David Driskell. Drawing on the artist’s personal collection, the exhibition features Driskell’s work and works by Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, and others.

by Louisa Shepard | Penn Today | July 17, 2024

A new exhibition at the Arthur Ross Gallery explores the work and legacy of David Driskell, a leading American artist, scholar, and curator who was central to establishing African American art as a field of study.

The exhibition, “David C. Driskell and Friends: Creativity, Collaboration, and Friendship,” explores his friendships with other artists, drawing on his personal collection, with works by Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Keith Morrison, James Porter, Hale Woodruff, and others, signifying the scope of his relationships across generations.

The traveling exhibition is by the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of Visual Arts and the Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora; all 35 artworks on view are from there, about a quarter of them by Driskell himself. The Arthur Ross Gallery is the last stop of the tour.

“This is a survey of African American art,” says Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, the inaugural faculty director of the Gallery. “What ties it together is that all of these artists have a relationship to David Driskell, but the themes, the subjects, and the styles represent what so many artists had been doing.”

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