Celebrating Black and African American Heritage
On View: Historic Artworks
Unidentified enslaved African American potter, Face jug, ca. 1862–65, alkaline-glazed stoneware. Thomas J. Davies Palmetto Pottery and Fire Brick Co., Bath, Edgefield District, South Carolina. Collection of Kenneth Fechtner. Photo by Linnea Stephan. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
The works of enslaved and freed African American potters in the Edgefield District of South Carolina serve as both personal records of the brutality of slavery and creative acts of resistance.
On View: Historic Artworks
Edward Mitchell Bannister, Untitled (Walking Through a Field) [detail], ca. 1870s, oil on canvas, 22 x 42 1/4 in. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
In 1876, Edward Mitchell Bannister became the first African American artist to win a national award. The Huntington’s Lauren Cross writes about what motivated him, whom he credited for his success, and how he shifted from being a portraitist to a landscape artist.
Current Exhibition
Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight
Through Nov. 30, 2027 | Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art
Renowned American artist Betye Saar’s large-scale work Drifting Toward Twilight—recently commissioned by The Huntington—is a site-specific installation that features a 17-foot-long vintage wooden canoe and found objects, including birdcages, antlers, and natural materials harvested by Saar from The Huntington’s grounds.
On View: Historic Books
Born only a decade after the abolition of slavery in the United States, Carter G. Woodson would devote his life to combating the erasure of the Black experience from the nation’s historical record. Only the second Black American to receive a doctorate from Harvard University, Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915 to help sustain this work. His many publications include A Century of Negro Migration, a pioneering examination of Black efforts to escape the dire fate of slavery and its legacy of prejudice and hatred.
On View: Historic Books
Pasadena-born author Octavia E. Butler crafted her acclaimed science fiction novels through extensive research and persistent writing and rewriting. For Parable of the Sower, she wove together concerns about climate change, social inequity, and pharmaceutical innovation to construct the story’s dystopian future. Like Butler, other artists in the 20th and 21st centuries employed a variety of genres and media to envision the future, explore the past, and contemplate the present.
Stories
Grafton Tyler Brown was one of the few African American artists and printers in the American West during the 19th century. He broke barriers as an illustrator and lithographer, a business owner, and a landscape painter.
Thomas Young’s 1896 volume of original poems and songs is among the few books by African American authors to have been published in the American West before the 20th century. Young’s as-yet-unheard voice belongs to the longer tradition of Black literature and, more broadly, American literature.
Octavia E. Butler was one of the foremost writers of speculative fiction. Her work and the story of her life compel us to reckon with power, leadership, creativity, human relationships, and the unknown possibilities that await us in the stars.
In 1933, Sargent Johnson began a monumental architectural installation for the California School for the Blind in Berkeley. It was commissioned by the federally sponsored Public Works of Art Project—part of the New Deal.
During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s, California was an important site of African American creativity, even in the face of intense discrimination. Black enclaves emerged as places where African American leaders, activists, writers, performers, and visual artists could build community and make professional connections.
Hilton Als joined Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence in a conversation about his career as a critic and curator, the relationship between visual and textual forms, and the endless inspiration found in The Huntington’s collections.