Nadiah Fellah, this year’s Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow in the American Art Department of the Newark Museum, played a significant role in organizing Modern Heroics: 75 Years of African-American Expressionism, opening this Friday at the Newark Museum.
Curated by Tricia Laughlin Bloom, the exhibition takes a fresh look at heroic themes in modern and contemporary art, featuring 34 paintings and sculptural works with an emphasis on storytelling and expressive imagery.
On view from June 18, 2016 through January 8, 2017, “Modern Heroics” brings together rarely exhibited works by leading historical and contemporary African-American artists, placing in dialogue several generations and a range of self-taught and formally trained approaches. The founding figures of the Harlem Renaissance and the Spiral group are represented in the exhibition, along with a diverse selection of contemporary artists and works by a number of self-taught artists. Featuring large-scale paintings by Norman Lewis, Purvis Young, Emma Amos, Bob Thompson and Mickalene Thomas, Modern Heroics will also include rarely- exhibited works by Romare Bearden, Minnie Evans, Herb Gentry, and Emilio Cruz, among others; and sculpture by Chakaia Booker, Kenseth Armstead, Kevin Sampson and Thornton Dial.
(photo: Shoshanna Weinberger (born 1973). Portrait of Five Women, Kingston, Jamaica: Miss Caribbean (detail), 2012. Gouache, ink and collage on paper, 24 x 18.75 in)