Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Culture
Art and Art History
Terra Foundation Visiting Professor of American Art
Oxford University, 2019-2020
The Primers | The Photographers | The Progressives | The Pragmatists
Moderator: Geoffrey Batchen, Professorship of the History of Art, Oxford University
The final lecture examines an exhibition generated by the Harmon Foundation in 1944 called “Portraits of Outstanding Americans of Negro Origin.” This group of commissioned portraits toured the US for nearly ten years with the intention of not only celebrating the contributions of successful African Americans, but also modeling social integration and the possibilities of civil rights. Considering the aesthetics and logistics of the exhibition, I explore the ways in which the philosophies of Alain Locke informed the unabating optimism that portraiture could generate social change.