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Our Neighbors Collect:
African American Art
Morris Museum, Augusta, GA
September 8–October 29, 2006
Bessie Nickens
Hide and Seek 1990
Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia
Gift of Barbara Cohens
Working in cooperation with the Morris Museum's Friends of African American Art, the museum has assembled an
exhibition representing work held in local private collections.
Many of America's most important African American artists have roots in the South—something that is often
reflected in their work—and, early in the twentieth century, many of them became very influential. Limited resources often led them to develop multiple skills—as artists, educators, curators, critics, and entrepreneurs. Hale
Woodruff, represented in the current exhibition by a wood-block print, exemplified this pioneering spirit from the
time he arrived, in 1931, at Atlanta University, where he taught and created his own work for more than thirty years
. Just as importantly, he also founded the Atlanta Annual, a competitive exhibition that was open to black artists nationwide. Those annuals provided important exposure for black artists, helped to improve African Americans'
understanding of and appreciation for their own art, and led in part to Atlanta's reputation as a major art center.
Some black artists drew their inspiration from the folk culture of the region. Beverly Buchanan and Benny Andrews,
both represented in the exhibition, characterize this. Others—including Mose T, Clementine Hunter, and Margaret Ramsey—are genuinely untutored artists who have drawn on and depicted folk visions and personal experiences. It is
hardly surprising that so many African American artists have worked outside formal traditions, since so many were
deprived of formal art training. Each has improvised highly individual symbols, forms, and techniques to convey his or her ideas and feelings.
A special feature of the present exhibition is Bessie Nickens's masterpiece Hide and Seek. A gift to the Morris
Museum from Ms. Nickens's daughter, Barbara Cohens, the painting was featured in Walking the Log: Memories of a Southern Childhood, the last exhibition of her work held during her long, eventful life. Bessie Nickens died at the
age of ninety-nine two long years ago, leaving an unfinished work on her easel. She still had stories to tell and the skills to tell them well.
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