A Picture Gallery of the Soul presented by the Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota

September 13–December 10, 2022

Over 100 Black American artists with a focus on the photographic medium are featured in A Picture Gallery of the Soul, a group exhibition being shown at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, run by the University of Minnesota’s Department of Art. A Picture Gallery of the Soul honors, celebrates, explores, and interprets Black history, culture, and politics in the United States by showcasing a variety of photographic expressions from traditional photography to mixed media and conceptual art over the course of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. The lecture on pictures that Frederick Douglass gave in Boston in 1861 is where the title of the exhibition originates from.

Artists in the exhibition: Salimah Ali, Devin Allen, The Rev. Henry Clay Anderson, Jean Andre Antoine, Thomas E. Askew, Radcliffe Bailey, J. P. Ball, John L. Banks, Anthony Barboza, Ronald Barboza, Miranda Barnes, C. M. Battey, James “Jimmy” Baynes, Endia Beal, Arthur P. Bedou, Hugh Bell, Dawoud Bey, Mark Blackshear, Kwame Brathwaite, Sheila Pree Bright, George O. Brown, Nakeya Brown, Kesha Bruce, Crystal Z Campbell, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Micaiah Carter, Charles Chamblis, Vanessa Charlot, Albert Chong, Tiffany L. Clark, Mark Clennon, Tameca Cole, Florestine Perrault Collins, Bill Cottman, Adger Cowans, Gerald Cyrus, Louis Draper, Barbara DuMetz, Mara Duvra, John Edmonds, Dudley Edmondson, Cydni Elledge, Awol Erizku, Nona Faustine, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Al Fennar, Alanna Fields, Lola Flash, Krista Franklin, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Russell Frederick, Tia-Simone Gardner, Courtney Garvin, Bill Gaskins, John F. Glanton, Tony Gleaton, Goodridge Brothers, Kris Graves, Walter Griffin, Allison Janae Hamilton, Lucius W. Harper, Charles “Teenie” Harris, Daesha Devón Harris, L. Kasimu Harris, LeRoy Henderson, Jon Henry, Chester Higgins, Bobby Holland, Mildred Howard, Earlie Hudnall, Ayana V. Jackson, Frank Jackson, Leslie Jean-Bart, Rashid Johnson, Caroline Kent, Dionne Lee, Fern Logan, Stephen Marc, Robert H. McNeill, Ozier Muhammad, Nancy Musinguzi, Bruce Palaggi, Gordon Parks, Ebony G. Patterson, Howardena Pindell, John Pinderhughes, Carl Robert Pope, Jr., Deborah Roberts, Herb Robinson, Bobby Rogers, Keris Salmon, Keisha Scarville, Addison N. Scurlock, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Jamel Shabazz, Harry Shepherd, Coreen Simpson, Lorna Simpson, Marvin and Morgan Smith, Ming Smith, Jovan C. Speller, Bruce W. Talamon, Elnora and Arthur Chester Teal, Hank Willis Thomas, Richard A. Twine, James Van Der Zee, Shawn Walker, Augustus Washington, Carrie Mae Weems, Carla Williams, Deborah Willis.

The exhibition catalog, which was released by the University of California Press and the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, offers more background on the links between Black American history and culture and photography from its creation to the present. Each artist featured in the exhibition has a full-page photograph, a caption, a statement, and a biography in the catalog, along with essays by Cheryl Finley, crystal am nelson, Seph Rodney, and Deborah Willis.

Made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, Metropolitan Picture Framing, BluDot, The Givens Foundation for African American Literature, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Kate and Stuart Nielsen, and the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation. Herman J. Milligan, Jr. and Howard Oransky served as the curators.