Sharon Patton to Lecture at SUNY New Paltz: Art Historian’s work focuses on African-American and West African Art

NEW PALTZ — Selected works by artist Romare Bearden, subject of Patton’s talk, are available by clicking here.

On Thursday, April 12 art historian Sharon Patton, Director of the respected Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, presents a lecture titled Historical Moments in African-American Art. The lecture begins at 7:00 PM in Lecture Center room 102 at SUNY New Paltz and is free and open to all. The Art History Association, a funded member of the Student Association, sponsors this event.

Of the nearly 20 exhibitions Patton has organized, three that were mounted during her tenure at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she was chief curator from 1988-1991, received considerable attention and acclaim: “Memory and Metaphor, the Art of Romare Bearden, 1940-1987”; “Home: Contemporary Urban Images by Black Photographers”; and “The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s.” The latter was in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City.

The major retrospective show of Bearden’s work, in 1991, resulted in the publication of Patton’s first book, Memory and Metaphor, The Art of Romare Bearden (Oxford University Press). Her most recent book, African-American Art, also from Oxford, was published in 1998. Patton’s numerous awards and grants include fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For more information, call 845-257-3858. Detailed information on upcoming arts events is available on the web at http://hawk.newpaltz.edu/artsnews.

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