NCA New York PRESENTS
"BLACK HISTORY MAKERS IN ART”
AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART AND COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 

The National Conference of Artists (NCA) New York Chapter presented a Black History Month Celebration, “Black History Makers in Art” with a series of awards and panel discussions, on February 4th at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium and on February 5th at Columbia University’s Davis Auditorium. This marked the first year of what is planned to become an annual Black History Month event. This year, eight makers of history received awards; David C. Driskell, Elizabeth Catlett, Paul R. Jones, Danny Simmons, Lorenzo Pace, Dr. Margaret Burroughs, Voza Rivers and Dr. Barbara Ann Teer. The conference was sponsored in part by the Harlem Arts Alliance. Artist and art historian David C. Driskell whose efforts have helped to produce more African-American graduates on the doctorial level anyone else in these United States received a Lifetime Achievement Award. The University of Maryland, College Park has built The David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the African Diaspora in his name to continue his work. Established in 2001 through the generous gifts of distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Art, and a community of artists, scholars, and friends of the University of Maryland, the David C. Driskell Center is a venue for the exploration of the presence of Africa and the African diaspora in modern culture. The Center’s mission is to nurture research and creativity of the highest caliber, provide training for scholars on issues and methodologies in the study of the African diaspora, and encourage the growth of future generations of artists and researchers who can bring new insights to the phenomenon of the African diaspora and its influence. Also receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award was renowned sculptor and printmaker, Elizabeth Catlett-Mora. An activist and outspoken advocate for human rights in the 40s, she moved to Mexico in 1946, establishing permanent residency there the following year and joining the Taller de Gráfica Popular, a printmaking workshop in Mexico City. Although best known for her wood and stone sculptures of archetypal black women rendered with abstract simplicity, she is also a talented printmaker and has produced lithographs and linocuts throughout her long career that celebrate the heroic lives of African American women. Catlett’s “Woman Fixing Her Hair” sculpture was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in 1993. Ms Catlett-Mora’s award was received by her granddaughter, as she recuperated from knee surgery at home in Mexico. Paul R. Jones received the Pioneer in Art award for raising the bar on how donations to institutions are made to gain maximum benefit for artists, scholars and the art loving public. After amassing his major art collection and reaching a decision to donate millions of dollars it, he explored best opportunities for giving substantial art for maximum benefit and impact on the art world. For years he sought out the best possible home for the high profile collection. In the early nineties he loaned art for a major exhibition at the University of Delaware, which had one of the best programs in art/ American art history and art conservation in the U.S. When the university of Delaware approached him proposing he donate he skillfully and successfully negotiated with the proviso that they house it where a substantial exhibition from the collection would always be available to students researchers, scholars from the university and that a center be established for use by art related scholars from around the nation; that a curator be brought on board to Shepard the collection and grow it and design a program to tour exhibitions to Historically Black Colleges and Universities and establish and exchange program of faculty and students as well as weave the teaching of Black art history into the teaching of American art history at the University. They did that and more; renovating a building on the historic register, Mechanical Hall, to permanently house the collection at a cost of more than $.5 million dollars. Early in his collecting career, Jones, an Atlanta businessman became aware that African-American art was vastly underrepresented in public collections. After considerable research, he identified a number of young artists whose work he wanted to support and purposefully sought them out. The result of Mr. Jones’ efforts is a wide-ranging collection with works by noted artists as Charles White, Herman “Kofi” Bailey, Elizabeth Catlett, Earl Hooks, Leo Twiggs, Ayokunle Odeleye, Jacob Lawrence, Amalia Amaki, Romare Bearden, P.H. Polk, Selma Burke, Ming Smith Murray, Margaret Burroughs, James VanDerZee, Jimmie Mosely, Edward Loper and Ernest Chrichlow. The significant collection is now housed at the University of Delaware, where it promotes the study of African-American insight and influence and contributions across a broad spectrum of culture in this country, reflecting the University’s commitment to celebrated collector, Paul Jones initiatives providing students diversity with exposure to this rich culture of our world. The Paul Jones Collection has been singled out by Arts and Antiques magazine as one of the top one hundred fine art collections in the country. Brandywine Print Workshop singled Jones out for its Lifetime Achievement Award and gifted the collection with several hundred thousand dollars of prints – in an unprecedented mover – supporting this outstanding pioneer. The Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Delaware, in conferring upon Paul Jones the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters stated you have “forever changed the University of Delaware, it relationship with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and the study of American art…” Noted painter, novelist, TV producer, art gallery owner, curator and philanthropist in the arts, Danny Simmons received The Multi-Arts Award for his many talents. His paintings have been shown nationally and are included in the collections of The Schomburg Center for Black Culture, Montclair State University, the United Nations, and Chase Manhattan Bank. He has exhibited extensively and was included in the NCA 4th International Exhibition, “Renewing Our Spiritual Connections” at the National Museum of Ghana in 2002. He is an avid collector of African classical/functional and international contemporary art, and also collects comic books. Simmons is the founder and Vice-President of the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, a non-profit organization with a focus in arts-in-education for children. He is also the founder and President of the Rush Arts Gallery, showcasing the work of established and emerging artists. In addition, Simmons converted part of his loft in Brooklyn into the Corridor Gallery, which serves as an adjunct exhibition space to Rush Arts Gallery. Danny along with his brother Russell Simmons created the nonprofit Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, which awards grants to programs that expose urban children to the arts. The Rush Arts Gallery shows works of African American and other artists and provides a mentor program for urban youths interested in the arts. His novel “Three Days As the Crow Flies” is being made into a major motion picture. Danny is one of the most important art activist in Brooklyn (and elsewhere), and is instrumental in bringing the various cultures of visual artists together in a common cause, united artists in predominantly Black communities with artists in the established white communities in Brooklyn. He serves on several important boards of not-for-profit groups. The Black History Makers award for Public Art went to sculptor Dr. Lorenzo Pace for his ”Triumph of the Human Spirit” monument at Foley Square near the African Burial Ground. The $18 million project is a stylized version of the Chi Wara (African Antelope) on a boat made of black granite, 60 to 70 fee thigh, floating in a pool 80 feet wide, symbolizing the ships that brought slaves from Africa. It also symbolizes the boats which brought over others to the Americans because, according to Pace, "we are all immigrants." Pace said the piece "will change the way people view public art around the world and those who make it." Buried in the center of the monument is a lock and key, that held Pace’s Great Uncle in slavery. The lock and key were given to Pace by an uncle and Lorenzo decided to imbed it into the monument after he received the commission. Eighty-Seven year young and spirited Dr. Margaret Goss Burroughs is an institution builder. She founded the National Conference of Artists in 1959 and in 1961, along with her husband founded the DuSable Museum of African American History on the ground floor of their Chicago home. The museum, which has since moved to its own buildings in Chicago's Washington Park, has become an internationally recognized resource for African American art. The DuSable Museum also hosts various educational programs and houses a permanent collection of more than thirteen thousand artifacts, artworks and books. She is also a founder of the Association of African American Museums. Although Burroughs has worked in sculpture, painting and many other art forms throughout her career, it is her exceptional skill as a printmaker that has earned her a place within the history of art. For many years, she has worked with linoleum block prints to create images evocative of African American culture. Burroughs' work has been featured in exclusive shows at the Corcoran Art Galleries in Washington, D.C., and at the Studio Museum in New York. She has served as art director for the Negro Hall of Fame and has illustrated many books, including What Shall I Tell My Children Who are Black?. Burroughs has also published several volumes of her own poems, illustrated a number of children's books, and exhibited her own artwork all over the world. In 1975 she received the President's Humanitarian Award and in 1977 was named one of Chicago's Most Influential Women by the Chicago Defender. February 1, 1986, was proclaimed "Dr. Margaret Burroughs Day" in Chicago by late Mayor Harold Washington. Today, she remains active in the institutions that she has created in her lifetime. Dr. Burroughs has a recently released new book, Life with Margaret: The Official Autobiography of Dr. Margaret T.G. Burroughs. The globetrotting Dr. Burroughs flew in from Chicago for one day to receive the NCA Institution Builder’s Award.Voza Rivers, Chairman of the Harlem Arts Alliance, was awarded the NCA award for Arts Organizing. Rivers has built the HAA into a 375 member alliance, which includes more than 260 arts organizations and more than 100 individual artists. Voza is one of the most active producers in the U.S., heading the New Heritage Theatre and co-producing the amazing youth group Impact, as well as globetrotting to import musical and theatrical groups from South Africa. The final recipient was Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, founder of the famed National Black Theatre, who received an Institution Builders Award. NBT was founded in 1968 then becoming the country's first revenue-generating black theater arts complex. The 64,000 square foot interior, rich with colorful African artwork done by African artisans brought into the US by Dr. Teer just for the occasion. The décor bursts with warmth and a deep sense of cultural pride, and has received an “NCA Art in Public Space” award. The conference featured panels with the very best presenters from various parts of the U.S. At the MET Lisa Messinger, assistant curator of the exhibition “Bearden at the MET” drawn from their archives, spoke about the Bearden – MET connection, and panels on “Institution Building” with Driskell, Burroughs and Teer presenting; “Collectors and Collections” with Jones, Dr. Robert Steele, Director of the Driskell Center and donator of the Jean and Robert Steele Collection at the University of Maryland College Park; and Simmons all delivered a wealth of information that was consumed by the enthusiastic crowd of art lovers. The last panel of the day was be “Public Art” with Valerie Maynard creator of the MTA Arts for Transit instillation at the 125th Street and Lexington Avenue subway station and Lorenzo Pace creator of “Triumph of the Human Spirit monument at New York’s Foley Square adjacent to the African Burial Ground. On Saturday at Columbia U, featured panels “Black Arts Movements” with NCA president Kwame Brathwaite giving an overview and presenters Elombe Brath of the African Jazz-Art Society & Studios, AJASS (founded in 1956), Rivers on the Harlem Arts Alliance, and Beuford Smith of Kimoinge Artists presenting. Panel II was “Arts and Education” with Emmett Wigglesworth (Children’s Art Carnival) and Elsworth Ausby (School of Visual Arts) The conference closed with an panel “Raising the Bar for Arts Support” comprised of Ted Berger, Executive Director New York Foundation for the Arts: Marline A. Martin, of the Children’s Art Carnival.