Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA/the Museum) presents Photography and th – Black Art In America™ Gallery & Gardens

Mississippi Museum of Art Presents Groundbreaking Exhibition
Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985

Last cease on a nationwide tour, the exhibition is on view July 25–November 8, 2026 Jackson, MS

Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA/the Museum) presents Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985, a landmark exhibition exploring the work of American and Afro-Atlantic diaspora photographers and artists working with pictures in creating and fostering a distinctly Black visible tradition and identification.  Investigating the medium’s position within the Black Arts Movement, which advanced concurrently with the American civil rights and worldwide freedom actions, the exhibition reveals how artists developed methods to interact communities and encourage self-representation in the course of the turbulent many years of the mid-Twentieth century.  Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, the place the exhibition debuted, it’s on view at MMA from July 25 to November 8, 2026. Prior to MMA, Photography and the Black Arts Movement was offered on the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. The exhibition includes roughly 150 works, spanning pictures, video, collage, portray, set up, and different lens-based media, a few of which have not often or by no means been on public view. Among the over 100 artists included within the exhibition are Billy Abernathy (Fundi), Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Frank Bowling, Kwame Brathwaite, Roy DeCarava, Louis Draper, David C. Driskell, Charles Gaines, James E. Hinton, Danny Lyon, Gordon Parks, Adrian Piper, Nellie Mae Rowe, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, Jamel Shabazz, Lorna Simpson, and Carrie Mae Weems.   Above, proper:  Harry Adams, Protest Car, Los Angeles, 1962.

Photography and the Black Arts Movement is drawn principally from the National Gallery’s assortment—together with greater than 50 newly acquired works by Dawoud Bey, Kwame Brathwaite, Louis Draper, Ray Francis, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Horace Ové, Jamel Shabazz, Malik Sidibé, Ming Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems, amongst others — and from lenders within the U.S., Great Britain, and Canada.  Above, left:  Horace Ové, Walking Proud, Notting Hill Carnival, c. 1972.

This expansive number of work showcases the broad cultural change between writers, musicians, photographers, filmmakers, and different visible artists of many backgrounds, who got here collectively within the mid-Twentieth century to grapple with social and political modifications, the pursuit of civil rights, and the emergence of the Pan-African motion by means of artwork. The exhibition additionally consists of artwork from Africa, the Caribbean, and Great Britain to contextualize world engagement with the Black Arts Movement.

Images characteristic distinguished civil rights leaders, artists, and musicians in addition to on a regular basis folks, bringing collectively studio, press, and road pictures with pictures that have been initially created and circulated in style, industrial, political, and journalistic contexts. 

Structured round thematic sections—together with explorations of group, style and wonder, the media, and ritual—the exhibition evokes a holistic imaginative and prescient of the interval, its far-reaching cultural affect, and the breadth and texture of Black identification.

Photographs have been a vital device used to speak the occasions of the civil rights motion to a nationwide and worldwide viewers. Artists and information media understood the ability of pictures to handle inequality and advocate for civil and human rights. Some works within the exhibition are by photojournalists who captured the speeches, marches, and sit-ins that indelibly recorded and helped outline the period.  Above, proper:  Kwame Brathwaite, Untitled (Portrait, Reels as Necklace), c. 1972.

The Black Arts Movement was additionally instrumental in reshaping style, promoting, and media as instruments of self-representation and cultural empowerment, prompting advertisers to interact Black audiences extra thoughtfully by hiring Black photographers and fashions of their campaigns.

MMA’s presentation is distinguished by a partnership with Jackson State University’s Margaret Walker Center, which operates the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) Learning Center. COFO was the epicenter of the fashionable civil rights motion in Mississippi and served because the organizational dwelling for Freedom Riders in 1964. It was notably one of many solely initiatives to efficiently unify a coalition of activist organizations within the combat for civil rights that included the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and a bunch of native organizations. To spotlight COFO’s pivotal contributions to the historical past of civil rights, MMA has produced supplementary wall labels within the exhibition’s part on activism and supplies 

expanded sources on its Bloomberg Connects app. In addition, MMA’s presentation consists of not often seen pictures taken at Jackson State University (previously Jackson State College) in 1973, in the course of the inaugural Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival, organized by poet Margaret Walker. The pictures seize main Black girls writers of the Black Arts Movement, together with Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Sonia Sanchez, and Nikki Giovanni, who gathered on the pageant for readings, conversations, and cultural change.  Above, proper:  Barkley L. Hendricks, Self-Portrait With Red Sweater, 1980 (printed in 2023).

MMA Associate Curator of Exhibitions Kaegan Sparks mentioned, “Our goal of partnering with COFO and the Margaret Walker Center for this powerful presentation is to amplify the singular role that Mississippi played in galvanizing both the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements. Photographers from Mississippi include Doris Derby and Roy Lewis. Documentation by Bob Fletcher, Doug Harris, Danny Lyon, and Tamio Wakayama vividly portray the aftermath of Freedom Summer and the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964—two civil rights milestones organized by COFO.”

Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985 is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

It is curated by Philip Brookman, consulting curator of pictures on the National Gallery of Art, and Deborah Willis, college professor and chair of the division of pictures and imaging on the Tisch School of the Arts and director of the Center for Black Visual Culture at New York University. The exhibition has been overseen at MMA by Kaegan Sparks, affiliate curator of exhibitions, and Chase Quinn, artistic director and curator of particular initiatives.  Above, left:  Doris Derby, Member of Southern Media photographing a younger lady, Farish Street, Jackson, Mississippi, 1968.

Exhibition Publication:  Published by the National Gallery of Art in affiliation with Yale University Press, the absolutely illustrated catalogue accompanying the exhibition examines the very important position pictures performed within the evolution of the Black Arts Movement, which introduced collectively writers, filmmakers, and artists as they explored methods of utilizing artwork to advance civil rights and Black self-determination. Edited by Philip Brookman and Deborah Willis, with a preface by Angela Y. Davis and contributions by Makeda Best, Margo Natalie Crawford, Romi Crawford, Cheryl Finley, Sarah Lewis, and Audrey Sands, the publication reveals how pictures operated throughout artwork, group constructing, journalism, and political messaging to contribute to the event of a distinctly Black artwork and tradition. Essays by these distinguished students concentrate on subjects reminiscent of girls and the motion, group, activism, and Black photojournalism, and contemplate the complicated connections between American artists and the African diaspora, and the dynamic interchange of Pan-African concepts that propelled the motion.

Exhibition Support:  Support for the MMA exhibition is offered by the Teiger Foundation, Visit Jackson, Southern Poverty Law Center, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, LLP, and Clarion Ledger. 

About the Mississippi Museum of Art:  Established in 1911, the Mississippi Museum of Art is devoted to connecting Mississippi to the world and the ability of artwork to the ability of group. The Museum’s everlasting assortment consists of work, pictures, multimedia works, and sculpture by Mississippi, American, and worldwide artists. The largest artwork museum within the state, the Mississippi Museum of Art provides a vibrant roster of exhibitions, public packages, inventive and group partnerships, academic initiatives, and alternatives for change year-round. Programming is developed with group involvement to make sure that a multiplicity of voices and views are represented. Signature packages embody the Center for Art and Public Exchange, a community-driven effort to make sure native relevance to choices; the Annie Laurie Swaim Hearin Memorial Exhibition, a bi-annual nationally acknowledged touring exhibition program; and the Mississippi Invitational and Jane Hiatt Fellowship, selling the careers of working artists within the state. Located at 380 South Lamar Street in downtown Jackson, the Mississippi Museum of Art and its packages are sponsored partially by the City of Jackson and VisitJackson. Support can also be offered partially by funding from the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state company, and partially by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal company. For extra info, go to www.msmuseumart.org.

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Visitor Information
Opening Hours
Tuesday – Saturday: 11 AM – 5 PM
Sunday: 1 – 5 PM
Admission Prices
$15 Adults
$13 Seniors (65+)
$10 Youth (ages 6-17) and College Students (with ID)**
Free admission is at present provided to the next teams:

• MMA Members
• Children ages 5 and beneath
• The public the primary Saturday of each month for Access for All: Free First Saturdays. Generous help is offered by the Art Bridges Foundation’s
Access for All.
• Ok-12 college students on Tuesdays because of Trustmark and Thursdays because of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi.
• **Mississippi State University and Millsaps College college students, because of our Collegiate Partner Program.
• Active-duty navy personnel and as much as 5 members of the family from May 16 to September 7, 2026, as a participant of Blue Star Museums.

Address:  380 South Lamar Street, Jackson, MS 39201

Image Captions:
Harry Adams, Protest Car, Los Angeles, 1962. Inkjet print, 11 x 13 15/16 inches (27.5 x 35.4 cm). Courtesy of Tom & Ethel Bradley Center, California State University, Northridge, Harry Adams Archive.

Horace Ové, Walking Proud, Notting Hill Carnival, c. 1972. Inkjet print, 34 x 24 in (86.4 x 61 cm). Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund. © Sir Horace Ové.

Kwame Brathwaite, Untitled (Portrait, Reels as Necklace), c. 1972. Inkjet print, 29 1/2 x 29 1/2 in (74.9 x 74.9 cm). Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Gift of Funds from Renée Harbers Liddell and Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, 2024.70.1. © Kwame Brathwaite Doris Derby, Member of Southern Media photographing a younger lady, Farish Street, Jackson, Mississippi, 1968. Gelatin silver print, 12 7/8 x 8 5/8 inches (32.7 x 21.9 cm). Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Gift of David Knaus, 2022.149.2. © Doris A. Derby. 

Barkley L. Hendricks, Self-Portrait with Red Sweater, 1980 (printed 2023). Chromogenic print. Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund. © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy of the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.