Black Like Who?

Issues regarding visual depictions of blackness in American art have been such highly scrutinized topics in both artistic production and museum exhibitions that one could ask what else is there […]

Question Bridge

Hank Willis Thomas, Chris Johnson, Bayete Ross Smith, Kamal Sinclair Question Bridge is trans-media art project that counters established notions of Black masculinity in the United States. The project presents nearly […]

Intimate Interiors

Taken from the Museum’s permanent collection, Intimate Interiors presents portraits of intimate moments and spaces including places of religious worship, bedrooms, and entertaining. It is within these spaces that we are at […]

Celebrate Life

In August, Birmingham lost a remarkable artist, teacher, and member of our community with the passing of Chris Clark (1958-2011). Clark’s vibrant quilts, furniture, walking sticks, and other painted and […]

A Stitch in Time

The art of quilting enjoys a long and rich heritage within African-American communities, particularly in the Deep South. Drawing from the Museum’s permanent collection of American quilts—among the largest in […]

Spiral

In the early 1960s in New York, the artist Romare Bearden invited a group of African-American artists to meet and discuss their roles as black artists during the charged years […]

A Masterpiece in Our Midst

The Birmingham Museum of Art recently announced the purchase of A Dream of Italy (1865), a major painting by Robert S. Duncanson (1821-1872), one of the most significant African-American artists of the […]

To Make a Picture

This second installation in our African-American art gallery explores various aspects of Prentice Herman (P.H.) Polk’s work. Polk (1898-1984), a Bessemer native, became one of the most important photographers of […]

New Hands, Native Lands

The exhibition New Hands, Native Lands presents recent Navajo pictorial textiles and Pueblo pottery from the American Southwest as a compelling blend of tradition and innovation in both craft and design.The Pueblos […]