Companion Exhibitions at the Frist
David C. Driskell and Friends; Kindred Spirits: Creativity, Collaboration and Friendship
Most people, including the artists themselves, see visual arts as a solitary profession. Dancers move in companies or corps, musicians play in bands or orchestras, actors perform in ensembles or troupes. But painters, sculptors, and most photographers work alone. This is what makes the life and legacy of world-renowned artist David Driskell so unusual, and heartening. He worked with, consulted, mentored, and was mentored by scores of visual artists at all stages in his career, and theirs.
Like Kamala Harris, Driskell earned his undergraduate degree at the famed historically black university (HBCU), Howard University. He then earned his MFA at Catholic University. Throughout his career, he paired academia and art, curating and collaborating. While teaching at Talladega College, Howard University, and our own Fisk University (three other HBCUs), promoted the art of other artists as well as his own. He ended his teaching career at the University of Maryland, which has honored his heritage in 2001 with the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora.
In his first major project since taking on the role of Associate Curator at the Frist Museum, Fisk alumnus Michael J. Ewing worked with curatorial colleagues to assemble an impressive array of photographs; paintings in oil, watercolors, and gouache; collages; and drawings in pencil and charcoal. Following in Driskell’s footsteps, Ewing collaborated with Dr. Sheila Bergman of the University of California-Riverside, Professor Heather Sincavage of Wilkes University in Pennsylvania, and Jamaal B. Sheats of Fisk University, all of whom spoke during the well-organized walking preview of the exhibit. Also involved in the collaboration, but not present during the tour, Curlee Raven Holton, past director of the Driskell Center. This exhibition was organized after Driskell’s death and led by Raven who invited Bergman and Sincavage. Jamaal Sheats, Director and Curator of Fisk University Galleries, is co-curator of the companion show Kindred Spirits on view at the Frist and Fisk University.
The first exhibition—David C. Driskell & Friends: Creativity, Collaboration, and Friendship— features photographs of Driskell with notable artists like Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence alongside compelling lithographs by Margo Humphrey and watercolors by Sam Middleton. We also see that in his own art, Driskell collaborated between media with his “strip collages,” paintings, and photographs.
Humphrey’s “Black Madonna” a 2013 work depicting the tragic death of Trayvon Martin with the logo of skittles, making a black power sign was particularly moving.
The companion exhibition—Kindred Spirits: Intergenerational Forms of Expression, 1966–1999— highlights the influence Driskell had on artists associated with Fisk as faculty and visiting or exhibiting artists. This exhibition is split between the Frist and Fisk University’s Carl Van Vechten Gallery.
Keith Anthony Morrison’s “Calendar” was an eye-catching blast of color beautifully complementing more muted works like Elizabeth Catlett’s dark lithograph, “These Two Generations.” This tour of Kindred Spirits was co-led by Ewing by Fisk curator Jamaal Sheats, who told an inspirational anecdote about Fisk President James Raymond Lawson, the first Fisk alumnus to serve in that role.
Lawson discovered a ceramic artist in his local barbershop, Craighead’s Barbershop. The barber, James Miles, had a piece of his own art in the shop. Impressed, Lawson was later able to offer him a scholarship, which provided Miles’ the opportunity to study at Fisk under Earl J. Hooks and Greg Ridley. Barbershops across the country still display his art. Recognizing the talents of two of its own, in 1980 Fisk commissioned Miles to create a sculpture of Fisk alumnus and co-founder of the NAACP, WEB DuBois, which was completed in 1982.
I was not able to attend the second half of this multi-location opening held at Fisk’s Carl Van Vechten Gallery. However, my coverage of African Modernism in America and Dikenga: Four Faces of the Sun gives every confidence that this fabled American university, forged in prior times of adversity, continues its legacy of respect for the past while moving with finesse and determination toward the future. In fact, one of the works featured in the African Modernism exhibit is also featured in this homage to Driskell—South African artist Peter Clarke’s striking, “That Evening Sun Goes Down.” Painted in 1960, this work of gouache on paper is part of the Fisk Galleries collection. After meeting Driskell in Africa, Clarke was offered a residency at Fisk in 1976 as a visiting poet during the era of South African apartheid, which didn’t end until 1990. As Driskell sagely noted about Clarke and his depiction of a caste structure seen in the homelands of both artists, “his art is greater than the cast artificially made for him.”
This inspiring event was organized by The Driskell Center with support from the Teiger Foundation, the Sandra Schatten Foundation, and Joanne and Joan Whitney Payson. The exhibit will remain in the Frist upper galleries and the Carl Van Vechten gallery at Fisk March 14–June 1, 2025.
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Y Kendall is a Stanford-educated musicologist, specializing in dance history who recently earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Columbia University, studying nonfiction writing with Ben Ratliff and Margo Jefferson. Kendall’s diverse works have been published in Alchemy: Journal of Translation, Columbia Journal, Mitos Magazín, The Hunger Mountain Review, and The Salt Collective, among others. Born and raised in Tennessee, Kendall now lives near Nashville, freelancing as a flutist and writer, while caregiving for relatives.
