David Driskell, the Celebrated Painter and Scholar Who Championed the Long History of Black Art in America, Has Died at 88

The influential artist, curator, and scholar David Driskell has died at the age of
88. News of his passing was announced by the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the
Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African
Diaspora at the University of Maryland.

No cause of death was specified, and his gallery, DC Moore, did
not respond to requests for comment.

Driskell taught at the University of Maryland from 1977 until
his retirement in 1998, and the center in his name was established
in 2001. It is now a leading hub for scholarship about black
artists.

“During these challenging times, it is difficult to mourn one
individual, but we are here to honor his legacy and continue his
work of supporting and promoting African American artists,” the
center said in a statement. “Once appropriate, we will ensure that
our community has the chance to mourn and celebrate the life of a
man who meant so much to so many of us.”

Born in 1931, Driskell studied at the Skowhegan School of
Painting and Sculpture in Maine during the summer of 1953. He later
lived part-time in Falmouth, Maine, painting among the pine trees,
a longtime source of artistic inspiration.

Driskell earned a BFA with a minor in art history at Howard
University in Washington, DC, in 1955. His mentor there was James
A. Porter, a pioneering art historian who helped shape the
trajectory of Driskell’s career.

“You have a good mind so you can’t just be a painter; you’re
going to have to help define the field and keep the tradition
going,’” Driskell remembered Porter
telling him.

As a curator, Driskell made many notable scholarly
contributions. In 1976, he curated the groundbreaking
traveling survey “Two Centuries of Black
American Art: 1750–1950,” which debuted at the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art. It featured the work of 63 artists.

Although LACMA asked Driskell to organize the show, he still had
to win over its board.

“I said, ‘It just happens to be that white Americans have little
or no knowledge about what black Americans have done in the visual
arts. So this is an educational process for everybody,’” he
recalled saying in 2009. “It was a mini-lecture on why we shouldn’t
be looking at art in segments, yet we must do this for black
culture because of the omissions.”

Driskell, who was also a collector, owned works by the
likes of Alma Thomas, James Van Der Zee, and Sam Gilliam. The
Newark Museum of Art presented an exhibition from his collection in
2001.

As an artist, Driskell was represented by DC Moore gallery since
2006. His works are held by institutions including the High Museum
of Art in Atlanta, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts in
Philadelphia, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the National Gallery
of Art and the Library of Congress, both in Washington, DC.

In 2000, Driskell was honored with a Presidential Medal of
Honor in the Humanities and also earned the Skowhegan
Lifetime Legacy Award in 2016. He was named a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018.

Among those paying tribute to Driskell on social media was
artist Hank Willis Thomas. “Thank you for opening the doors for so
many of us so gracefully, so beautifully, and so lovingly,” he
wrote on Instagram. “May we continue to
rise in your legacy.”

The post David Driskell, the Celebrated Painter and Scholar
Who Championed the Long History of Black Art in America, Has Died
at 88 appeared first on artnet News.