John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art 2020, A Tribute to David C. Driskell: Part 1, Joy Cometh in the Morning

Description

Julie
L. McGee, associate professor of
Africana studies and art history, and director, Interdisciplinary Humanities
Research Center at the University of Delaware; author of David C. Driskell:
Artist and Scholar; and curator of David Driskell: Icons of Nature and
History (High Museum of Art, February 6?May 9, 2021; Portland Museum of
Art, June 19?September 12, 2021; and The Phillips Collection, October 16, 2021?January
9, 2022)

For this keynote
address recorded on August 21, 2020, Julie L. McGee reflects upon the artist?s studio as a place of
professional mark-making. As Driskell once noted, ?The studio is a place
of joy, comfort, reassurance, as well as a place to meditate and pray. It is my
sacred grove.? Centering Driskell?s impact as an artist, educator, and curator,
McGee observes, ensures that we see American art more comprehensively, and that
we more insistently mark the contributions of historically Black colleges and
universities to American art history. The fourth annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art was held in
partnership with 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, College Park, and Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. This
program was made possible by a grant from the Alice L. Walton Foundation