African American Museum (Dallas)

Last updated March 06, 2019

Coordinates: 32°46′45″N96°45′51″W / 32.7792°N 96.7643°W / 32.7792; -96.7643 African American Museum is an American art museum located at 3536 Grand Avenue in Fair Park, Dallas, Texas. The museum was founded in 1974 and has operated independently since 1979. The 7 million dollar structure which is now its home, was funded through private donations, and a 1985 Dallas city bond election, which provided 1.2 million towards its construction. The 38,000-square-foot (3,500 m²) structure, built in the shape of a cross, is made of ivory-colored stone. Natural materials and design motifs are used throughout the museum in a manner reminiscent of pre-industrialized cultures of the African continent.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.

An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily concerned with visual art, art galleries are often used as a venue for other cultural exchanges and artistic activities, such as performance arts, music concerts, or poetry readings. Art museums also frequently host themed temporary exhibitions which often include items on loan from other collections.

History

The African American Museum of Dallas was established in 1974 as a part of the Special Collections at Bishop College, a historically black college which closed in 1988. The Museum has operated independently since 1979. The $7 million edifice was funded through private donations and a 1985 Dallas City bond election that provided $1.2 million for the construction of the new facility. The Museum is the only one of its kind in the Southwestern United States devoted to the preservation and display of African American artistic, cultural and historical materials. It also boasts having one of the largest African American Folk Art collections in the U.S..

Bishop College was an historically black college, founded in Marshall, Texas, United States, in 1881 by the Baptist Home Mission Society. It was intended to serve students in east Texas, where the majority of the black population lived at the time. In 1961 the administration moved the college into Dallas, Texas. Being based in a major city helped it attract more students. It operated until 1988, but a major financial scandal caused it to lose accreditation and funding.

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. This was because the overwhelming majority of predominantly white institutions of higher-learning disqualified African Americans from enrollment during segregation. From the time of slavery in the 19th century through to the second half of the 20th century, majority schools in the Southern United States prohibited all African Americans from attending, while historic schools in other parts of the country regularly employed quotas to limit admissions of blacks. There are 101 HBCUs in the United States, including public and private institutions. This figure is down from the 121 institutions that existed during the 1930s. Of these remaining HBCU institutions in the United States, 27 offer doctoral programs, 52 schools offer master's programs, 83 colleges offer bachelor's degree programs and 38 schools offer associate degrees.

Dallas is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. With an estimated 2017 population of 1,341,075, it is the ninth most-populous city in the U.S. and third in Texas after Houston and San Antonio. Dallas is the main core of the largest metropolitan area in the Southern United States and the largest inland metropolitan area in the U.S. that lacks any navigable link to the sea. It is the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country at 7.3 million people as of 2017. Dallas is the seat of Dallas County. Sections of the city extend into Collin, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall counties.

The Museum's operators say they strive to present a meaningful experience to children and adults who do not normally visit art museums. The museum houses a rich heritage of American art and history in four vaulted galleries that are augmented by a research library. The Museum's permanent collections include African art; African American art; magazine, historical, political, and community archives. Visitors can also experience African American culture through many educational and entertaining programs that are frequently presented in an "educational plaza", which includes a theater and classrooms.

Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial architecture and the accompanying styles in other media were quickly in place. Early colonial art on the East Coast initially relied on artists from Europe, with John White the earliest example. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, artists primarily painted portraits, and some landscapes in a style based mainly on English painting. Furniture-makers imitating English styles and similar craftsmen were also established in the major cities, but in the English colonies, locally made pottery remained resolutely utilitarian until the 19th century, with fancy products imported.

African art describes the modern and historical paintings, sculptures, installations, and other visual culture from native or indigenous Africans and the African continent. The definition may also include the art of the native African, African diasporas, such as African American, Caribbean and other American art. Despite this diversity, there are some unifying artistic themes when considering the totality of the visual culture from the continent of Africa.

Collections

The current museum building occupies virtually the same site as the Texas Centennial Exposition's Hall of Negro Life. It boasts a permanent collection that consists of the works of such highly regarded African American artists as Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Larry D. Alexander, John T. Biggers, Clementine Hunter, Benny Andrews, Edward Mitchell Bannister, and Arthello Beck.

Romare Bearden was an African-American artist and author of a history of his people's art. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in New York City and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and graduated from NYU in 1935.

Jacob Lawrence was an African-American painter known for his portrayal of African-American life. As well as a painter, storyteller, and interpreter, he was an educator. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", though by his own account the primary influence was not so much French art as the shapes and colors of Harlem. He brought the African-American experience to life using blacks and browns juxtaposed with vivid colors. He also taught and spent 16 years as a professor at the University of Washington.

Larry Dell Alexander is an American artist, Christian author and Catechist from Dermott, Arkansas in Chicot County. Alexander is best known for his creations of elaborate colorful, and black & white "pen and ink" drawings in his "crosshatching", or "hatching" technique, and his acrylic paintings. He also received notoriety and a personal presidential thanks for his personal rendition of a "Clinton Family Portrait" oil painting which he gave to U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1995. It is now a part of the collection at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is also known for the Arkansas Schools Tours that he did between 1996 and 2006. He has written several bible commentary books on the Christian Bible and in recent years he is better known for his writings and teachings on Christianity

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References

↑ - Dallas Morning News "Guide Live"
↑ - Dallas Live Large, Think Big Archived July 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine .
↑ - Art and Seek

External links

African American Museum Official Website

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[1] - Dallas Morning News "Guide Live"

[2] - Dallas Live Large, Think Big Archived July 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine .

[3] - Art and Seek