Co-organized by the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati and The Phillips Collection, the exhibition draws upon previously unknown works and archival findings, recovering the depth and variety of the more than three-decade career of Vivian Browne (b. 1929, Laurel, FL; d. 1993, New York, NY). The exhibition features paintings, prints, and works on paper across seven bodies of work, as well as ephemera that highlight Browne’s pioneering activism and influential teaching career. Browne was a founder of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, an organization that fought for Black representation in New York museums; a founder of SoHo20, one of the first women’s art cooperatives in Manhattan; and a professor at Rutgers University (1971–92). Her signature approach to color and form challenged the neatly defined categories of abstraction and figuration, and art and politics, revealing a more nuanced approach to art-making that is part of Browne’s unique contribution to 20th-century art of the US.
Vivian Browne: My Kind of Protest
See Also
“Sometimes the little things you don’t think are anything while they’re happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life.”
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again)