The first ever career retrospective of renowned artist Willie Birch (American, born 1942), this exhibition brings together groundbreaking works from the late 1960s to the present that chronicle Birch’s unique vision of the Black American experience and explore the interconnected nature of global art forms. Birch, raised in New Orleans and trained in Europe, Baltimore, and New York, often speaks about “retentions,” a term he uses to describe cultural evidence of another culture’s traditions in Black American life.
Willie Birch: Stories To Tell
Willie Birch, Two Faces of a Nation, 1968. Wood, paint, and found materials, 35 1/2 × 60 ¾ × 7 1/2 in. framed. Photo by Sesthasak Boonchai.
Willie Birch, Man with Horn (Ancestor Calling), 1980. Carved wood. 12 1/2×47 3/4×5 5/8 in. Photo by Sesthasak Boonchai.
Willie Birch, The Builders (for Jacob Lawrence), 2019. Acrylic and charcoal on paper, diptych; sheet: 47 1/2×71 1/2 in. Photo by Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Willie Birch, Uptown Memories (A Day in the Life of the Magnolia Project), 1995. Painted papier-mâché and mixed media. 82×62×60 in. Photo by Roman Alokhin.
Willie Birch, Street Musician with Guitar, 1999. Acrylic and charcoal on paper. 60×48 in.
See Also
1987
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts is established in New York, NY. His will called for the creation of a foundation dedicated to “advancement of the visual arts,” and he left nearly his entire estate to the cause.