New Archive Collections Acquisition.
October 24, 2025
Announcing The Where We At Black Women Artists Archives and The Dindga McCannon Archives.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEWS RELEASE
Contact: David Conway
Title: Archivist
Phone: 301-314-2625, Email: archives-driskellcenter@umd.edu
THE DRISKELL CENTER IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE
WHERE WE AT BLACK WOMEN ARTISTS ARCHIVES
AND THE DINDGA McCANNON ARCHIVES
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, is proud to announce that the Center’s Archives will be home to The Where We At Black Women Artists Archives (Gift of Dindga McCannon and Gordon Taylor in honor of the Where We At Black Women Artists) and The Dindga McCannon Archives (Gift of Dindga McCannon).
Since its founding in 2001, The Driskell Center has sought to create an intellectual home for scholars seeking a fuller understanding of the American art canon. That understanding can only come about through a reckoning with the outsized accomplishments of artists of African descent. This was David C. Driskell’s lifelong vision and his motivation for assembling an archive, the David C. Driskell Papers, over the course of five decades, that he donated to the Center in 2011. The Driskell Center Archives houses multiple collections, including the Faith Ringgold Study Room Collection, Harmon Foundation Papers, Hayes-Benjamin Papers on African American Art and Artists, Alonzo Davis Collection, Michael D. Harris Collection, robin holder collection, Crumpler Collection, the Okoe Pyatt and Shelley Inniss Archive of the Weusi Artist Collective and now The Where We At Black Women Artists Archives and The Dindga McCannon Archives. The Driskell Center’s Archives is supported in part by major grants from the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
ABOUT THE COLLECTIONS
Artists Dindga McCannon (b. 1947), Kay Brown (1932-2012) and Faith Ringgold (1930-2024) founded “Where We At” Black Women Artists in 1971. McCannon and Brown were the only two women artists in the Weusi Artist Collective. Together with Ringgold, they felt they had no alternative but to form a collective addressing the specific challenges faced by Black women artists. In addition to the three artists, the original members were Carol Blank (1941-2013), Jerrolyn Crooks De Gracia (b. 1947), Pat Davis, Mai Mai Leabua, Onaway “Onnie” Millar (1919-2008), Charlotte Richardson Ka, and Ann Tanksley (b. 1934). The group’s name derived from an exhibition at the Acts of Art Gallery in Greenwich Village, “Where We At, Black Women Artists, 1971.” The collective fostered the careers of its members. Still, its broader mission was to nurture creative and cultural awareness in the community at large, conducting workshops in hospitals, prisons, schools, colleges, and cultural centers. Through an apprenticeship program, aspiring artists had the opportunity to work with “Where We At” artists in their studios.
Dindga McCannon has embraced various media across a six-decade career as an artist. “I have worn many, many hats; that of a painter, printmaker, and wearable art maker, and that of a muralist, writer and illustrator, and fiber artist/quilter. Currently, I consider myself a multimedia/mixed-media artist.”* Her work is in the collections of the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Brooklyn Museum, The Phillips Collection and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. She donated her archives, The Dindga McCannon Archives, in addition to The Where We At Black Women Artists Archives to The Driskell Center, greatly expanding the Center’s capacity to support research in the visual arts of Black women artists.
The collections include correspondence; photographs; clippings; catalogues and exhibition ephemera; event flyers; posters; newsletters; meeting minutes; writings; 35mm slides, and negatives. Highlights of The Where We At Black Women Artists Archives include photographs of exhibitions held in homes, membership information, newsletters, and meeting minutes. The Dindga McCannon Archives includes a hand-illustrated galley of McCannon’s Omar at Christmas and catalogues, ephemera, and articles documenting McCannon’s practice and career.
ABOUT THE DRISKELL CENTER
The Driskell Center is a creative incubator dedicated to a world where Black artists exist at its center. We invite inquiry, experimentation, and dialogue to reexamine histories and shape shared futures. All programs at The Driskell Center are free and open to the public. For further information regarding exhibitions and activities at The Driskell Center, please visit driskellcenter.umd.edu or call 301-314-2615.
*Brooklyn on My Mind: Black Visual Artists from the WPA to the Present, Myrah Brown Green. Schiffer, 2018.
Image: Dindga McCannon (seated), Linda Hit (l.), and Miriam Francis (r.), Where We At Black Women Artists, circa 1975 (Photographer unknown). The Where We At Black Women Artists Archives. The Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Cookin and Smokin: Faith Ringgold Study Room Collection, 1948-2016. Gallery 19, Box 01, Folder 05. The Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park.