The Driskell Center is pleased to announce that the Center’s Library and Archives will be home to the Robert L. Hall Collection
March 15, 2024
Educator, Curator, Artist Robert L. Hall Gifts Books and Archives to The Driskell Center
The Driskell Center is pleased to announce that the Center’s Library and Archives will be home to the Robert L. Hall Collection, a gift of Robert L. Hall. Education Specialist and Associate Director for Education at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum and formerly Curator of Collections and Education at Fisk University Museum of Art in Nashville, Mr. Hall was a student and later, a colleague, of David C. Driskell at Fisk. The collection consists of over 100 books on African American and African diasporic visual arts and approximately 3.5 linear feet of archival material. The books and archives in the Robert L. Hall Collection take their place alongside the David C. Driskell Papers, and especially the Hayes-Benjamin Papers on African American Art and Artists and the African American Artists in Washington, DC collections, in expanding the Center’s resources for understanding the rich history of African American visual arts in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The bulk of the collection was accumulated during Hall’s 40-year career in the area. The collection consists of exhibition brochures and catalogs, research materials, photographs, and correspondence. Topics include the Barnett Aden Gallery, Carl Van Vechten, Alma Thomas, Black sculptors, and Caribbean art.