Aaronetta Hamilton Pierce

Last updated
Aaronetta Hamilton Pierce
Born
Aaronetta Hamilton

1940s
NationalityAmerican
SpouseJoseph Pierce
Awards Texas Women's Hall of Fame
1993 Patron of the arts and museums

Aaronetta Hamilton Pierce (born c. 1943) is an African-American arts advocate and civic leader. She has sat on a number of boards of civic and arts organizations. Her areas of interest have been fighting poverty, improving education opportunities, and promoting the visual and performing arts. She was appointed to the Texas Commission on the Arts in 1985. She founded Premier Artworks with her husband to promote African-American artists and their works.

Contents

In 1993, she was inducted to the Texas Women's Hall of Fame. In 2007, she received the USCA Humanitarian Award from the Congress.

Early life

Her mother is Clementine Hamilton of Nashville, Tennessee and she has a sister, Sylvia Hamilton Thomas. [1]

Career

Hamilton Pierce was a museum docent at the San Antonio Museum of Art. While giving a tour there about 1980, a young African-American girl stated that were no black people represented in the works in the museum, which became a springboard for her role promoting the works of African-Americans. She said that she and her husband realized "We had to elevate this great legacy we cherished — the books and art of African Americans — and help it find its deserved place in American history." [2]

Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Arch, ca. 1915, Brooklyn Museum Brooklyn Museum - The Arch - Henry Ossawa Tanner - overall.jpg
Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Arch, ca. 1915, Brooklyn Museum

Appointed by Governor Mark White in 1985, she was the first African American woman to sit on the Texas Commission on the Arts in 20 years. [2] [3] She became a San Antonio Museum Association board member and helped bring a show Hidden Heritage: Afro-American Art, 1800-1950 —with the works of Grafton Tyler Brown, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, and Henry Ossawa Tanner— in 1987. It was the first major show of its kind in San Antonio. [2] That year, she was appointed founding chair for the city's first Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration by the mayor and her efforts led to the founding of the Department for Culture and Creative Development in San Antonio. [2]

She co-founded the Southwest Ethnic Arts Society [3] and has served on the boards of the San Antonio Performing Arts Association, the Witte Museum, Las Casas Foundation, United Way of San Antonio, and Fisk University. [2] [3] She has served the Rockefeller Foundation's Partnership for Hope to fight poverty and the Education Fund of the Education Partnership. She has also served on the boards of the Texas Cultural Trust, San Antonio Spurs Foundation, San Antonio Library Foundation and the University of Texas at San Antonio Development Board. [3]

Director of Arts Linkage that promotes literary, performing and visual arts, she has said the organization's goal is to enrich the appreciation of African-American artists and the creative genius of their legacy." She sat on the executive committee of the international women's service organization, Links Incorporated. [4] She and her husband founded, and she is president of, Premier Artworks, Inc., which promoted African-American art in private and public collections and exhibits. [3] She was inducted into the San Antonio Women's Hall of Fame in 1984 [5] and the Texas Women's Hall of Fame and honored at the Governor's Ball in 1993. [1] For her role as president of Premier Artworks and her efforts to promote multi-cultural arts and education, she received the USCA Humanitarian Award from the Congress in 2007. [5]

Personal life

Hamilton Pierce is married to Joe Pierce, a retired anesthesiologist. [2] Their sons are Michael and Joey. [1]

Related Research Articles

Lowery Stokes Sims is an American art historian and curator of modern and contemporary art known for her expertise in the work of African, African American, Latinx, Native and Asian American artists such as Wifredo Lam, Fritz Scholder, Romare Bearden, Joyce J. Scott and others. She served on the curatorial staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Museum of Arts and Design. She has frequently served as a guest curator, lectured internationally and published extensively, and has received many public appointments. Sims was featured in the 2010 documentary film !Women Art Revolution.

Cecilia Alvarez is an American Chicana artist known for her oil paintings and murals depicting themes of feminism, poverty, and environmental degradation in the United States and Latin America. Alvarez's painting Las Cuatas Diego has been featured in books and exhibitions around the world. Alvarez has also illustrated the bilingual children's book Antonio's Card authored by Rigoberto González. Her work is collected by the Mexican Fine Arts Museum, the Seattle Art Museum and by the Kaiser Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Culture of San Antonio</span>

The culture of San Antonio reflects the history and culture of one of the state's oldest and largest cities straddling the regional and cultural divide between South and Central Texas. Historically, San Antonio culture comes from a blend of Central Texas and South Texas (Southwestern) culture. Founded as a Spanish outpost and the first civil settlement in Texas, San Antonio is heavily influenced by Mexican American culture due to Texas formerly being part of Mexico and, previously, the Spanish Empire. The city also has significant German, Anglo, and African American cultural influences. San Antonio offers a host of cultural institutions, events, restaurants and nightlife in South Texas for both residents and visitors alike.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marion Koogler McNay</span> American painter

Marion Koogler McNay, was an American painter,art collector, and art teacher who inherited a substantial oil fortune upon the death of her parents. She later willed her fortune to be used to establish San Antonio's first museum of modern art, which today bears her name. Inspired by Modern, Impressionism, and American Art she used her wealthy background to cultivate her eclectic art collection. McNay was able to design her San Antonio home after moving there in 1926. As soon as McNay moved to San Antonio she began buying and commissioning art pieces. The Spanish styled house was able to showcase a diverse amount of paintings including both American and European styled art. McNay favored Art made in the South Western American style. The fortune she inherited was able to fund her art collection which spanned over seven hundred art pieces by 1950, marking the year of her passing. San Antonio allowed McNay to have an expansive estate marking over 23 acres of land. The goal for McNay was to make her museum "a place of beauty with the comforts and warmth of a home."

Chakaia Booker is an American sculptor known for creating monumental, abstract works for both the gallery and outdoor public spaces. Booker’s works are contained in more than 40 public collections and have been exhibited across the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Booker was included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial, received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005, and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Art in 2001. Booker has lived and worked in New York City’s East Village since the early 1980s and maintains a production studio in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Squeak Carnwath is a contemporary American painter and arts educator. She is a Professor Emerita of Art at University of California, Berkeley.

Agnes Gund is an American philanthropist and arts patron, collector of modern and contemporary art, and arts education and social justice advocate. She is President Emerita and Life Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Chairman of its International Council. She is a board member of MoMA PS1. In 1977, in response to New York City's fiscal crisis that led to budget cuts that virtually eliminated arts education in public schools, Gund founded Studio in a School, a nonprofit organization that engages professional artists as art instructors in public schools and community-based organizations to lead classes in drawing, printmaking, painting, collage, sculpture, and digital media, and to work with classroom teachers, administrators, and families to incorporate visual art into their school communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha Longenecker</span>

Martha Longenecker was an American artist, Professor of art, and founder of the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natalia Anciso</span> Chicana-Tejana visual artist

Natalia Anciso is an American Chicana-Tejana contemporary artist and educator. Her artwork focuses primarily on issues involving Identity, especially as it pertains to her experiences growing up along the U.S.-Mexico Border, via visual art and installation art. Her more recent work covers topics related to education, human rights, and social justice, which is informed by her experience as an urban educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a native of the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas and currently lives and works in Oakland, California.

Santa Barraza is an American mixed-media artist and painter who is well known for her colorful, retablo style painting. A Chicana, Barraza pulls inspiration from her own mestiza ancestry and from pre-Columbian art. Barraza is considered to be an important artist in the Chicano art movement. The first scholarly treatment of a Chicana artist is about her and is called Santa Barraza, Artist of the Borderlands, which describes her life and body of work. Barraza's work is collected by the Mexic-Arte Museum, and other museums around the United States and internationally. She currently lives in Kingsville, Texas.

Dana Tiger is a Muscogee artist of Seminole and Cherokee descent from Oklahoma. Her artwork focuses on portrayals of strong women. She uses art as a medium for activism and raising awareness. Tiger was inducted into the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 2001.

Betty Price was the executive director of the Oklahoma Arts Council from 1983 until her retirement in 2007. During her time as executive director, Price worked with eight different Oklahoma governors. Price served for many years as an arts advisor to state, non-profit organizations and a number of boards. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 1985 among many other awards and recognitions.

Margarita Cabrera is a Mexican-American artist and activist. As an artist, the objects and activities she produces address issues related to border relations, labor practices and immigration. Her practice spans smaller textile-based soft sculptures to large community-involved public artworks. In 2012 she was a recipient of the Knight Artist in Residence at the McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC. Cabrera was also a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant.

Ella Fontanals-Cisneros is a Cuban-born philanthropist and art collector with an abiding passion, and discerning eye for contemporary art and design. Born in Cuba and raised in Venezuela, her vision has made a significant impact on the Miami arts community and arts organizations around the globe. She is the founder and honorary president of the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Chabot</span>

Maria Chabot (1913–2001), was an advocate for Native American arts, a rancher, and a friend of Georgia O'Keeffe. She led the restoration of her house in Abiquiú, New Mexico and took the photograph of O'Keeffe entitled Women Who Rode Away, in which the artist was on the back of a motorcycle driven by Maurice Grosser. Their correspondence was published in the book Maria Chabot—Georgia O'Keeffe: Correspondence 1941-1949.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leslie Jackson Chihuly</span> American arts executive and philanthropist

Leslie Jackson Chihuly is an American arts executive and philanthropist. She is the president and chief executive officer of Chihuly, Inc., which includes Chihuly Studio and Chihuly Workshop, both of which feature the artistic work and vision of her husband, Dale Chihuly. In 2018, she was elected as chair emerita of the Seattle Symphony Board after serving nine years as board chair and implementing a number of revitalizing changes. Those included filling the roles of CEO and music director with fresh talent, and taking the organization from financial challenge and organizational strife in 2009 to the stage of Carnegie Hall in 2014. Under her leadership, the symphony won three Grammy Awards and the Gramophone “Orchestra of the Year Award” in 2018. Leslie Chihuly serves on the boards of the Seattle Symphony, Vassar College and the Pilchuck Glass School. In 2022, President Joe Biden announced his intention to appoint Jackson Chihuly to the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts.

Amy Freeman Lee was an American artist, writer and lecturer. She was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame in 1984.

Sue Margaret Cousins was an American editor, journalist, and writer. Cousins was a member of St. Mark's Episcopal Church, the Authors Guild, the Texas Institute of Letters, the Philosophical Society of Texas, the San Antonio Conservation Society, and a trustee of the Wildflower Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marisol Deluna</span> American fashion designer

Marisol Deluna is an American fashion designer based in New York City who specializes in screen-printed fashion accessories, apparel and home décor sold under the label Marisol Deluna New York.

Teresa Altagracia Lozano Long was an educator and philanthropist, supporting arts and education in Austin, Texas.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Society World". Jet. Johnson Publishing Company. February 22, 1993. p. 28. ISSN   0021-5996.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Elda Silva (May 21, 2015). "Arts collector also accumulated accolades". San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved February 6, 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Aaronetta Hamilton Pierce". Inductees. Texas Woman's University. Archived from the original on August 25, 2013. Retrieved April 19, 2012.
  4. Johnson Publishing Company (July 1996). "The Links: Women's Organization Celebrates 50th Anniversary". Ebony. Johnson Publishing Company. pp. 109, 110. ISSN   0012-9011.
  5. 1 2 U S Congress (November 1, 2010). Congressional Record, V. 153, PT. 4, February 17, 2007 to March 12, 2007. Government Printing Office. p. 6055. ISBN   978-0-16-086976-1.