New York City’s American Folk Art will present an exhibition that seeks to redefine the Black experience in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions during the Colonial Era and the early years of the republic.
“Unnamed Figures: Black Presence and Absence in the Early American North” will be on view from Nov. 15 through March 24, 2024. Billed as a “corrective to histories that define slavery and anti-Black racism as a largely Southern issue,” the exhibition will present 125 artworks including paintings, needlework and photographs that offer rarely-seen early American images of the Black population during the nation’s formative years – or as the museum stated, a challenge to “conventional narratives that have minimized early Black histories in the North, revealing the complexities and contradictions of the region’s history between the late 1600s and early 1800s.”
A 300-page scholarly book with contributions from Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Jennifer Van Horn, and several authors, is available for purchase in conjunction with this exhibition. More information is available on the museum’s website.
Photo: “Nancy Lawson” (1843), painted by William Matthew Prior (1806-1873); courtesy of the Shelburne Museum, Vermont.
