The Driskell Center is pleased to announce the 2025 Annual Distinguished Lecture in the Visual Arts in Honor of David C. Driskell
February 21, 2025
Announcing 2025 Annual Distinguished Lecture
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEWS RELEASE
Date: February 12, 2025
Contact: Abby Eron
Title: Assistant Director, Exhibitions & Programs
Phone: 301-405-6835
Email: events-driskellcenter@umd.edu
The Driskell Center is pleased to announce the 2025 Annual Distinguished Lecture in the Visual Arts in Honor of David C. Driskell
College Park, Md. – The David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park is pleased to announce Kellie Jones, PhD, as this year’s Annual Distinguished Lecturer in the Visual Arts in Honor of David C. Driskell. The Annual Distinguished Lecture Series was established to provide a forum for prominent artists and scholars to educate the public about important issues pertaining to African American art and artists. Her lecture, entitled “Suzanne Jackson: Ecologies of Abstraction,” will be presented on Thursday, April 3, at 6 p.m. in The Driskell Center gallery. Click here to register.
Dr. Jones is Hans Hofmann Professor of Modern Art in the Department of Art History & Archaeology and a Professor in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University. A member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Jones was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2016. Her newest book October Files: David Hammons is forthcoming from MIT Press in 2025.
The distinguished lecture is part of the 35th James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Arts and Art of the African Diaspora. The colloquium is organized by the Department of Art in Howard University’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts in partnership with The Driskell Center, the Association for Critical Race Art History, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Howard University Gallery of Art. This year’s theme is “The Shape of Race.” A full line-up of the Porter Colloquium (April 3-5) will be posted here.
The distinguished lecture is the capstone of Day 1 of the colloquium. At 4 p.m. on April 3, The Driskell Center will kick off the colloquium program with a performance by the 2024-25 David C. and Thelma G. Driskell Award for Creative Excellence Winners. Evening programming will also include an announcement of the James A. Porter & David C. Driskell Book Award in African American Art History.
ABOUT THE DRISKELL CENTER
The Driskell Center is a creative incubator at the University of Maryland dedicated to a world where Black artists exist at its center. We invite inquiry, experimentation and dialogue to reexamine histories and shape shared futures.
Admission to the gallery and all events is always free. For more information and to plan your visit see our website at https://driskellcenter.umd.edu/visit.
ABOUT THE DAVID C. DRISKELL CENTER DISTINGUISHED LECTURES IN THE VISUAL ARTS SERIES IN HONOR OF DAVID C. DRISKELL
The Annual Distinguished Lecture Series is the most prestigious lecture the David C. Driskell Center presents. Past speakers include Dr. Steven Nelson, Dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art; Dr. Jordana Saggese, Director of the David C. Driskell Center and Professor of Modern & Contemporary Art of the U.S. at the University of Maryland; Curlee Holton, Director of the David C. Driskell Center; Dr. Wil Haygood, Visiting Distinguished Professor at Miami University, Ohio; Dr. David Brigham, CEO, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem; Dr. Richard J. Powell, the John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History, Duke University; Jock Reynolds, the Henry J. Heinz II Director, Yale University Art Gallery; Dr. Johnnetta Cole, Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art; Deborah Willis, Ph.D., University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University; and Professor David C. Driskell.
ABOUT THE JAMES A. PORTER & DAVID C. DRISKELL BOOK AWARD
In March 2013, the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland established the James A. Porter & David C. Driskell Book Award in African American Art History. This award, which honors Professors Driskell and Porter’s legacies in the field of African American art, was created for the purpose of encouraging original research and scholarly writing on historical subjects pertaining to African American visual culture. Previous winners of the James A. Porter & David C. Driskell Book Award in African American Art History include Bridget R. Cooks, Exhibiting Blackness: African Americans and the American Art Museum (Massachusetts University Press, 2011), Christa Clarke, African Art in the Barnes Foundation: The Triumph of L'Art nègre and the Harlem Renaissance (Barnes Foundation/ Skira Rizzoli, 2015), Shawnya L. Harris, Expanding Tradition: Selections from the Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Collection (Georgia Museum of Art, 2017), Wil Haygood, I Too Sing America: The Harlem Renaissance at 100 (Columbus Museum of Art/ Rizzoli, 2018), Adrienne Childs, Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition (Phillips Collection/ Rizzoli, 2020), and Huey Copeland and Steven Nelson, eds., Black Modernisms in the Transatlantic World (National Gallery of Art/ Yale University Press, 2023).
ABOUT DAVID C. DRISKELL
Trained as a painter and art historian, David C. Driskell worked primarily in collage and mixed media. Driskell maintained an active career as a practicing artist, teacher, curator, collector, art administrator, and art consultant for more than 60 years. He lectured across the globe, and his works are included in major collections of art museums throughout the world. Professor Driskell authored five exhibition catalogues on the subject of African American art. He was the recipient of numerous fellowships, awards, and prizes, including three Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships and a Harmon Foundation Fellowship. In 2000, he received the National Humanities Medal from President Clinton. In 2005, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA established the David C. Driskell Prize, the first national award to honor contributions to the field of African American art and art history.
For media inquiries, please contact Sarah Snyder at ssnyder3@umd.edu.
