The Donald P. Sowell Endowment Committee (Sowell Committee) was established in 1993 as a tribute to Donald P. Sowell (1929-1989), an important Cincinnati artist and art educator.
The Sowell Committee promotes greater interaction and involvement of the African American community with the Cincinnati Art Museum. In doing so they oversee an endowment in Mr. Sowell’s name and act as a recommending body for the disbursements of its funds to promote African American art, programs, exhibitions and other art forms of interest to the African American community. The Sowell Committee also provides educational and social fundraising activities that benefit the endowment and the museum.
Programs take place on the first Sunday of each month from September through June from 3-5 p.m.
$50
For more information, please contact the Philanthropy Office at [email protected] or 513-639-2865.
African Modernism in America features more than 60 dynamic and vivid works of art created in Africa during the 1950s and ‘60s. Co-organized by the American Federation of Arts and Fisk University Galleries, the exhibition explores the relationships formed between African artists and American patrons, artists, and cultural organizations amid the interlocking histories of civil rights and decolonization, and the Cold War. The inventive nature of the works in this exhibition challenges the assumptions of the time about African art being isolated to a “primitive past.” Some pieces took inspiration from early Christian art, West African sculpture, and Nigerian literature, while others reflect the influences of American jazz and modern European art.
We will view the Smithsonian: Black and African American Art Tour, Part 1, exploring works in the National Gallery of Art collection, including works by Joshua Johnson, Edmonia Lewis, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Horace Pippin, Augusta Savage, and many others.
Brent Billingsley is an artist and an empowering voice behind disenfranchised youth. Billingsley will share his motivation and the process for his creative expression. He graduated in 2013 from Miami University with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts with a concentration in Printmaking and from the University of Cincinnati in 2015 with a Master’s in Social Work.
We will view the Smithsonian: Black and African American Art Tour, Part 2, exploring works in the collection of National Gallery of Art, including works by James Vander Zee, Richmond Barthe’, Romare Bearden, Alma Thomas, and many others.
Julie Aronson, Curator of American Art, will guide us through the exhibition Whitfield Lovell: Passages. Lovell is a contemporary African American artist who is known primarily for his drawings of African American individuals from the first half of the 20th century. Lovell creates these drawings in pencil, oil stick, or charcoal on paper, wood, or directly on walls.
Cynthia Collins, Chair
Linda Meador, Secretary
Myra Paige-Livingston, Treasurer
Katrina Mundy, Past Chair
Consuelo Harris, Member-at-Large
The Cincinnati Art Museum is supported by the generosity of tens of thousands of contributors to the ArtsWave Community Campaign, the region's primary source for arts funding.
Free general admission to the Cincinnati Art Museum is made possible by a gift from the Rosenthal Family Foundation. Exhibition pricing may vary. Parking at the Cincinnati Art Museum is free.
Generous support for our extended Thursday hours is provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program.
General operating support provided by: