Jubilee
Image Credit: Benny Andrews, Morning Song Study #1: Musical Interlude Series, 1999. Gift of David C. Driskell. Driskell Center, University of Maryland, College Park. © 2026 Estate of Benny Andrews / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY, Courtesy Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York, NY.
Jubilee
Jubilee: Celebrating 25 Years of The Driskell Center.
Jubilee: Celebrating 25 Years of The Driskell Center marks a quarter century of collecting, documenting, exhibiting, and nourishing African American artistry. The Center was established in the name of the eminent scholar, collector, and artist David C. Driskell (1931–2020) and continues to operate in honor of his passion and purpose. Driskell's family collection established the core of the Center's holdings when it was founded in 2001; since then, those holdings have grown to encompass hundreds of works across media — a microcosm of more than 150 years of Black art making.
As the Driskell Center commemorates its 25th anniversary, we reflect on the importance of its collecting and exhibition program — an inheritance from the generative spirit of Two Centuries of Black American Art, David Driskell's landmark 1976 exhibition that placed the history and possible futures of African American art on the map. Jubilee stands as a milestone that marks the development of a program that has evolved into a robust, far-reaching enterprise that generates scholarship, mounts exhibitions, amasses archives, and supports professional development in the field. The work of the Center not only weaves Black art into the fabric of American and global art but also charts what is distinct about Black American artists.
Jubilee features over seventy artworks from the Center's historic collection spotlighting the subjects, aesthetic concerns, and creative energies African American artists have engaged with from the early twentieth century to the contemporary moment. The exhibition moves across the many languages of abstraction, the centrality of portraiture in Black visual practice, art as spiritual work, the deep relationship between Black art and music, the mediation of history and memory, and the role of nature as muse and metaphor. Over twenty-five years, the Center has drawn together a devoted community of supporters, donors, and visitors whose commitment has made this work possible. In the spirit of freedom, endurance, and the hard-won right to express beauty and joy, we proudly present Jubilee — honoring the Center's first quarter century while joyfully anticipating the bright future of this essential American cultural institution.
This exhibition was curated by Dr. Adrienne L. Childs, with additional support from The Driskell Center staff. Its presentation here is made possible, in part, by the Maryland State Arts Council (msac.org), the Mellon Foundation, and the University of Maryland’s Arts for All Initiative. Additional funding was provided by the Living Legacy Education Fund, which provides operational and programming support to highlight David C. Driskell and his legacy as an artist, scholar, and art historian.
Request a Tour of the Exhibition Here.