This weekend, Emma went to the College Art Association conference to speak at a session titled “African American Art in the Abstract Expressionist Era.” The program description was as follows:
- Chair: Janet Berry Hess, J.D., Ph.D., Sonoma State University
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Emma Amos: Reflections on Spiral
Emma Amos, Rutgers University
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Richard Mayhew: Lyricism and Community
Richard Mayhew, Pennsylvania State University
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African American Expressionism: History and Context
Bridget Cooks, University of California, Irvine
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Esthetique Noir? African American Abstract Painters in Post–World War II Europe
Mamie Hyatt, Boston University
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Reading Literary Theory with Romare Bearden
Nora Niedzielski-Eichner, Stanford University
She spoke briefly about how she came to be invited to join Spiral when she was in her early twenties and fresh out of art school, while none of the much more prominent black women artists of the day—such as Vivian Browne and Faith Ringgold—were asked, and about how this exclusion of women continues in the art world today.