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Thursday, April 13 | 6 pm
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Register for a curator-led tour of OKCMOA’s newest exhibitions Fighters for Freedom: William H. Johnson Picturing Justice and Art and Activism at Tougaloo College.
Painted in the mid-1940s, Fighters for Freedom is a series that memorializes scientists, teachers, performers, activists, and heads of state who worked to bring peace and freedom to the world.
Art and Activism tells the story of Mississippi’s first modern art collection founded at Tougaloo College in 1963. The liberal arts school was active in the civil rights movement and the collection brought people of all races together in a segregated state and was an oasis during turbulent times.
More About Fighters for Freedom
William H. Johnson painted his Fighters for Freedom series in the mid-1940s as a tribute to Black activists, scientists, teachers, and performers as well as international heads of state working to bring peace to the world. He celebrated their accomplishments even as he acknowledged the realities of racism, violence, and oppression they faced and overcame. Some of his Fighters—Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, Marian Anderson, and Mahatma Gandhi—are familiar historical figures; others are less well-known individuals whose determination and sacrifice have been eclipsed over time. The exhibition is drawn entirely from the collection of more than 1,000 works by Johnson given to the Smithsonian American Art Museum by the Harmon Foundation in 1967.
More About Art and Activism
Since its founding in 1869 by the abolitionist-led American Missionary Association, Tougaloo College has made the fight for equality central to its mission. In 1963, the college became the nexus for modern art in Mississippi, when leaders of the New York art world began a rich program of art acquisitions. Co-organized by the American Federation of the Arts and Tougaloo College, Art and Activism at Tougaloo College examines the birth and development of this unique collection—the first in Mississippi dedicated to modern art. Created as civil rights protests swirled across the fiercely segregated state, the collection was envisioned as “an interracial oasis in which the fine arts are the focus and the magnet.” Comprised of approximately thirty-five artworks in a range of media by artists such as David Driskell, Elizabeth Catlett, Alma Thomas, Pablo Picasso, Richard Mayhew, Charles White, and Hale Woodruff, the exhibition gives insight into a complex American collection established at the intersections of modern art and social justice.
