The Birmingham Museum of Art is excited to have acquired work by Birmingham native, New York-based artist Noah Jemisin (born 1943). Jemisin is a painter, instructor, and was a student of artist Hayward Oubre (1916–2006). As an educator, he taught at the legendary Just Above Midtown (JAM), a gallery and experimental space in New York City that championed the works of African American artists and artists of color.
The Museum recently purchased Holland Tunnel (1981), a painting that depicts the tunnel between New York City and New Jersey, a route Jemisin frequently traveled while working as a taxi driver. The off-kilter perspective and encaustic painting technique creates a sense of motion and frenzy, immersing the viewer in Holland Tunnel traffic alongside Jemisin and his passengers.
Jemisin’s work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, the Stanley Museum of Art at the University of Iowa, Montclair Museum of Art, Museum of Santa Fe, and the Miami-Dade Public Library. He is the recipient of many awards, including those from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, a travel grant from Arts International, and artist-in-residency programs at the Bronx River Art Gallery and The Studio Museum in Harlem. He attended Alabama State University and earned a Master’s degree from the University of Iowa in 1974.