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We are pleased to announce Anne Kraybill as Chief Executive Officer of Art Bridges!

Welcome Anne Kraybill, CEO

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Bringing together over forty works of art, objects, and artist books, this exhibition challenges histories of marginalization and makes visible Black women’s presence in American art history.

Inspired by works in the BCMA’s permanent collection, the exhibition also provides an opportunity to place art by Black women in conversation with one another, showcasing their exploration of personhood, issues of identity, and resistance to certain modes of representation or classification.

Selected artists include Edmonia Lewis, Elizabeth Catlett, Alma Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, Betye Saar, Faith Ringgold, Kara Walker, Mickalene Thomas, Ja’Tovia Gary, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and Nyeema Morgan.

 examines the representation of Black women over the past two centuries.

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Rediscovering an American Community of Color: The Photographs of William Bullard, 1897-1917, presents over 80 photographs of African Americans and Native Americans living in a working-class neighborhood in Worcester, Massachusetts. 

Featuring men, women, and children of color in and around their homes, Bullard’s portraits capture a pivotal, underrepresented moment in American history between the end of Reconstruction and the Great Migration. These portraits provide insight into the lives and aspirations of Americans who have been largely neglected in photographic histories. Due to the fortunate survival of Bullard’s detailed logbook, over 80 percent of his sitters have been identified. 

As a result, through years of archival research, various scholars and Clark University students have traced the lives of these sitters, identifying their jobs, houses of worship, and the community organizations they built at the turn of the century. This rich narrative is enhanced through interviews with the sitters’ descendants, over 100 of whom have been identified.

Rediscovering an American Community of Color highlights several themes that remain relevant to Americans today: refugee migration; the ways that people of color claimed full citizenship; community building; and race-based job discrimination. In addition, the Bullard portraits were created on the threshold of The New Negro Movement, which encouraged racial and cultural pride. This led in part to the popularization of photography within the Black community. 

Labels and didactics elaborate on these themes and include quotes from several living descendants of Bullard’s sitters who were asked to reflect upon their ancestors’ portraits. 

The exhibition includes 83 photographs printed from the original glass negatives, a reproduction of Bullard’s original ledger; object labels, and extended didactics; an 11th grade Massachusetts student curriculum that can be amended as needed to comply with various state requirements; and an accompanying second edition of the award-winning catalogue.

Photographer William Bullard captured nearly 300 portraits of Black Southern migrants and Native Americans living in Central Massachusetts in the early twentieth century. Over 80 percent of the sitters have been identified allowing their personal stories to be told.

Border Cantos | Sonic Border

Using evaluation to inform exhibition marketing and programming, and measure impact

Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist

Delaware Art Museum -  Wilmington, DE

Installation

Denison Museum  -  Granville, OH

Will Wilson

In Conversation: Will Wilson

Richard Estes: Urban Landscapes

Rediscovering an American Community of Color: The Photographs of William Bullard, 1897- 1917

Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture  -  Spokane, WA

Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture  -  Spokane, WA

Frank S. Matsura

Frank S. Matsura: Portraits from the Borderland

William Bullard Portrait of Raymond Schuyler and Four of His Children

William Bullard Portrait of Lena and Blanche Jackson

William Bullard Portrait of David T Oswell with his Viola

William Bullard Portrait of Rose Perkins with Her Brothers Edward and Abraham

William Bullard

 spotlights photographs recovered from the studio archive of Washington-based Japanese photographer Frank Sakae Matsura (1873-1913) alongside period-specific American Indian regalia from the Columbia Plateau. 

Frank Matsura led an unconventional life, the details of which historians are still compiling from early records. Mysteriously arriving in newly-incorporated Okanogan County, WA from Japan in 1903, Matsura witnessed the architecture of western expansion and the diasporic conditions it created from the perspective of an outsider. Personable, humble, and formally-trained in photographic arts, Matsura became a popular member of the community and many flocked to his studio for portraiture. 

Hidden among Matsura’s total body of work, ranging from commercial photography to more experimental formats, are some of the most visually potent and nuanced images of Indigenous peoples from the era: conceptually sophisticated and collaborative portraits of individuals and families with whom Matsura maintained trusting relationships.

These photographs capture moments that reveal Syilx (Okanogan) communities effectively adapting to a changing time–a message distinct from many of Matsura’s contemporaries, whose work reinforced erroneous beliefs that Indigenous peoples would soon disappear. Enlivening the images, cultural objects from the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture’s premier American Indian Collection illustrate many of the meaningful items featured in Matsura’s portraiture; they offer a more intimate look at materials and processes containing archives of intergenerational memory.

The exhibition’s four themes: The Myth of the Vanishing Indian, Beauty and Utility, Collapsing Hierarchy, and Geijutsu Shashin (Photographic Art), consider various ways in which Matsura’s artistic legacy challenges colonial stereotypes, unsettles power dynamics in image-making, and fills important gaps in art historical and regional narratives.

Exploring indigenous representation through a multi-dimensional lens, portraits by Japanese photographer Frank S. Matsura (1873-1913) alongside period-specific Columbia Plateau regalia detail Matsura’s most culturally significant work against a backdrop of regional transformation.

Silver Linings: Celebrating the Spelman Art Collection

Homeward to the Prairie I Come: Gordon Parks Photographs from the Beach Museum of Art

Richard Estes

Frank Sakae Matsura Wapato Smithins Family

Frank Sakae Matsura Chilliwist Jim (La-ka-kin)

Woman's beaded bag, Interior Salish and Sahaptin

Man's beaded gauntlet paid, Interior Salish and Sahaptin

BCMA Accession #: 2003.28, Alma Woodsey Thomas, 

, 1973, acrylic on canvas, 60 in. x 40 1/8 in. (152.4 cm x 101.92 cm), Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, Gift of halley k harrisburg, Class of 1990, and Michael Rosenfeld. Photography by Luc Demers.

Alma Woodsey Thomas Double Cherry Blossoms

BCMA Accession #: 2020.22.4, Unidentified Photographer, 

 c. 1855-60, quarter plate ambrotype in thermoplastic case, 4 1/4 x 3/14 in. (10.8 x 8.26 cm), Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, Museum Purchase, Gridley W. Tarbell II Fund. Photography by Luc Demers.

Portrait of a Biracial Woman  Unidentified Photographer

, ca. 1930, painted plaster, 9 x 5 3/4 x 4 1/4 in. (22.86 x 14.61 x 10.8 cm), Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, Gift of halley k harrisburg, Class of 1990, and Michael Rosenfeld.

BCMA Accession #: 2020.22.2, John B. Wortham, 

African American Woman (Nanny) & Three White Children,

 late 19th century, cabinet card, 4 1/4 x 6 1/2 in. (10.8 x 16.51 cm), Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, Museum Purchase, Gridley W. Tarbell II Fund, Photography by Luc Demers.

John B Wortham African American Woman (Nanny) & Three White Children

There is a Woman in Every Color at Bowdoin College Museum of Art Brunswick Maine

Bowdoin College Museum of Art  -  Brunswick, ME

There is a Woman in Every Color at Tweed Art Museum Duluth Minnesota

There is a Woman in Every Color: Black Women in Art

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